Paradigm Shift A Loki FanFiction
by Alex Morte
Summary: Loki returns to Earth a year after his losing battle with the Avengers, only to be greeted by a stubborn and highly confused mortal woman. She turns out to be more strong willed and feisty than he imagined any single human to be. Will this female change his views on humanity, or will he once again try to conquer the world?
1. A Whirlwind Encounter of the Fourth Kind

_____Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. This is all for fun; not monetary values._

_____(EDIT: I found that the original first chapter didn't match the rest of my story, so I edited it for content. Hopefully, it will be better now. Enjoy!)_

_Chapter 1: Whirlwind Encounter of the Fourth Kind_

I sat in an open field, with only the stars and my thoughts to keep me company. I was miles away from the nearest town, and was pretty happy about it. Unless a wild cactus or a snake decided to randomly attack my reposed form, I wasn't too worried about having to rush to any emergency rooms. Despite there being an overabundance of things that could kill me, the New Mexico desert actually wasn't too bad at night. Well, if you had a jacket, it wasn't. You'd have to be nuts to sit out in the middle of a desert at nighttime without some form of warmth. Thankfully, I'm not completely crazy, so I'd brought a leather jacket to keep me from freezing my metaphorical balls off.

Staring at the stars, I pondered my life and how I got to be sitting next to my car in the middle of a dry state. I didn't allow myself to ponder on that for too long, and instead ended up focusing on the beauty of the little gas balls that twinkled millions of lightyears out of my reach. It's unfair how such beauty is so unattainable. How it's so far from a person's grasp. Hell, I didn't even have to travel outside of Earth's atmosphere to find inaccessible treasures. There are castles in Ireland that I'd never be able to afford, or see; first edition books I'd never get to read, or hold; incredibly hot actors I'd never get to schmooze, or have sex with.

I let out a heavy sigh and glanced over at my car. She was the one beauty that I _was_ able to obtain. Her name is Phoenix, and she's a blood red 1969 Ford Mustang Fastback. She's my pride and joy in life, and really the only friend I've ever truly had. I'd bought her when I was eighteen. I'd used a lifetime of saving to get her, and had poured every ounce of my love into her steel frame ever since. I sighed again, turning my eyes back to the sky.

"Man, Alex. You are one sad human being if a piece of machinery is your only friend," I murmured to myself. Something clicked in the back of my head and I perked up, realizing that I might've hurt my baby's feelings. I twisted around to pat her black wheel reassuringly. "Not that I don't love you, Nix. You're the best friend I could ever ask for."

I sat there, petting her body with gentle, caring strokes, when a crack of thunder tore through the night sky. I snapped my head to look up, nearly giving myself whiplash from the sheer momentum of my head moving. The once clear view of the stars was now gone, replaced with a large, dark, glowing cloud. Lightning sliced the darkness like a sword slashing into a black silk veil. Thunder crashed and the sky pulsed a brilliant cerulean. Swirls of blue streaked through the perfectly formed gray mounds of vapor like a topaz borealis. The winds picked up, whipping sand, and my hair, in a violent whirl around my body. I managed to utter a very tactful "huh" before a brilliant flash of light blinded me.

I fell backwards, shielding my eyes with my leather-wrapped arm. I bit back the girly scream that threatened to escape my throat. I refused to girly scream! I was a badass, and badasses don't shriek like little girls. Never once had I heard Bruce Willis squeal like a 1950's housewife. I intended to follow his example. Once I was sure that my retinas wouldn't be burned from my skull, and that the scream had died in my chest, I spun back around to scan my eyes over the now clear sky.

I stood up, looking around for any sign of the storm that had appeared and disappeared like David Copperfield's elephant. There wasn't so much as a flicker of a stray lightning bolt or a random roll of distant thunder. The storm was just...gone. Like the last shreds of my sanity, the twister had vanished.

I scanned the horizon, slowly turning around to look at everything the moonlight would allow me to see. My eyes fell upon a lump that I was pretty certain hadn't been there when I'd driven up. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the newly reformed darkness. It took another second for my brain to register that I was looking at a human form.

"Christ on a cracker," I muttered. I broke into a sprint towards the motionless human, all the while wondering to myself exactly how many people in New Mexico find Christ Crackers on a regular basis. Hell, they reported it on the news enough that it seemed like an everyday occurrence. Then again, maybe I was misinformed.

I dropped to my knees a few feet away, skidding along the sand until I was next to the unmoving mass of human, who was sprawled out on their stomach. They were wearing dark colored clothes, one article of which looked a lot like a trenchcoat. Their black hair was long and straight, curling out at ever so slightly at the ends. Or was it dark brown hair? Who could tell with the lack of light? Not me, that's who. Tentatively, I rolled the person on to their back, and nearly crapped my jeans. It was a man, and even in the darkness he was beautiful. He had a long, thin face with high, well defined cheekbones carved under his pale skin. His lips were thin, his nose was slim, and his eyebrows were dark and straight. Somehow, unattainable beauty was laying unconscious at my knees, and I was about to faint from the very prospect of being so close to it.

Instead of fainting, I reached a hand out to shake the man's shoulder. My fingers brushed metal, and I pulled my hand back like the element had been heated by a blacksmith's fire. Who the hell wears metal on their trenchcoat? Who the hell wears a trenchcoat? I looked closer at his clothes. They looked like black and dark green leather, and had sporadic antiqued gold accents. Only, they were weird. I'd never seen any article of clothing look the way his did., with so many intricate criss-crosses and studs. Who was this guy, and where the hell had he come from?

Instead of acting like a mild mouse again, I boldly shot my hand forward to grip the man's shoulder. And then I had a heart attack. His hand clamped around my wrist painfully, and I let out an unflattering girly yelp as I managed to lose my balance and fall from my knees to my ass. I could've sworn I heard the man say something as I yipped like a whipped puppy. But, I was far too busy being a whipped puppy to pay any attention to anything he had to say. My heart slammed against my ribcage so hard that it felt like someone was taking a sledgehammer to the inside of my chest cavity.

"What the fuck?!" I cried, my voice about five octaves too high. I was pretty sure that only dogs could hear me. That, or I was going to shatter the creepy, hot dude's eardrums like they were a champagne glass at an opera house. Either way.

"Silence, woman!" the man growled in a British accent. I was silent, snapping my mouth shut with a pop to be so. I wasn't entirely sure if I was silent because he'd told me to be, or because the sparkle of his eyes. They were captivating and commanded respect, even though I could only see the shine of them in the starlight. I had no idea how someone could possibly manage to command respect with their eyes when said optical receptors were shadowed by darkness, but he managed.

"Where am I?" he asked, staring at me. I could feel the weight and fire of his gaze on me as if he were a magnifying glass, and I a doomed insect. I was almost expecting lasers to shoot out of his eyes. Any second now, he'd vaporize me into a pile of ash that the wind would promptly whisk away. Thankfully, no red beams pierced my being, and I remained intact.

He sharply tugged on my wrist, sending a little thrill of pain up my arm. It, quite effectively, snapped me out of admiring his features in the moonlight. "Where am I?" he asked again, more insistent this time.

I stared up at him, unblinking. "Middle of nowhere, New Mexico," I replied quickly, barely moving my lips.

"On the planet Earth?" he asked. His eyebrows crawled up his forehead, and his chin dipped toward his chest.

"Yes," I replied. He grinned wickedly, and I could've sworn I'd heard angels singing. Or maybe that had been the air rushing back into my lungs as he released his grip on my wrist. Either way.

I pulled my wrist to my chest, resisting the urge to rub it as he looked around the open field. What was it that my mom had said about strangers? Ask them if they need a ride, or don't talk to them? Damn my crappy memory! I made my way to my booted feet, metaphysically shaking loose the feeling of my wrist still being on a vice as the man on the ground surveyed the open desert.

"Here," I said, holding my hand out to him to help him up. He looked up at me with that impish smile still in place, but as his gaze slid down my arm, his expression turned to one of distaste. And here I thought I was being nice when I'd extended the wrist he'd crushed to help pull him to his feet. He, however, seemed to believe differently.

"I do not need to you help me, woman. I'd pull your frail form to the ground in your attempt to get me on my feet," he growled, standing up. Holy hell, the man was tall. Then again, everyone was taller than me. I'm five foot three. Almost everyone I'd ever encountered had stood at least two inches taller than I did. This guy, though, had to be at least six foot two. Maybe he was right on the whole "pulling my frail form to the ground" thing, but now we'd never know for sure.

I crooked my neck to look up at him and narrowed my eyes slightly. "Well, I guess we'll never know that for sure, now, will we? Unless you plop back down again."

"I will not be plopping anywhere," he frowned.

"Well, that's all fine and dandy. Too bad, though, 'cause now I'll never-" A lightbulb switched on in my brain about five minutes too late, blinding me in the same way the weird storm cloud had. I stopped mid-sentence, and cricked my head sideways to cast a puzzled glare up at the man. "Did you ask if this was Earth?"

"Yes," he replied bluntly, walking past me. I stared out at the dark expanse of open field for a second longer before whirling around and following on his heels. Unfortunately for my short ass, his legs were long, so he was already halfway to my car by the time my stretched out gait allowed me catch up to him.

"If you have to ask if this is Earth, then where the hell are you from?" I asked. I walked next to him, matching his fast pace with relative ease. Somewhere in the back of my head, I expected him to say that he was from Mars. His true reply, though, made me stumble for half a beat.

"Asgard," he replied curtly. Where he hell was Asgard? Last I'd checked, England didn't have a town called Asgard. I was going to have to break out my world map.

"Because that makes sense without any further explanation," I said sarcastically.

He stopped in his tracks and glowered at me. I stopped in my tracks, spinning around on my heel to face him, and returned the favor. I crossed my arms over my stomach, waiting for further explanation. Big breasts tend to get in the way of arms-over-chest-crossing, so I tended to end up looking more like an uncomfortable child than a frustrated adult.

"I am Loki of Asgard. Rightful king to the throne of Asgard," he said in a booming, authoritative voice. I could've sworn that London was where the throne of England was located. Not Asgard. Well, I didn't even know if Asgard was in England, so it was more probably than not that the English throne was, indeed, in London. My head was starting to hurt with all of this thinking.

Pushing past the growing headache, I narrowed my eyes at him. "I'm Alex o'Connor of Florida. Rightful queen of sarcastic comments and bitchy undertones. And I'm assuming that since you didn't take my hand the last time I offered it to you that you won't accept it a second time."

"That is correct," he stated simply.

"At least you're honest," I said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Always," he said with a sly grin. He walked past me once more, and I heaved out a heartfelt sigh. Not only was he hot and unattainable; he was hot, unattainable, and hug-me jacket loony. No reasonably sane person would claim to be a king from some unheard of township. Just my luck.

I turned around to follow him again.

"Alrighty then, Loki of Asgard. How did you manage to get way the hell out here? And what was that light show cloud thing? And what is up with your clothes? You look like a goddamn space viking. Speaking of vikings, did you know that Norse mythology has a god named Loki? He's supposed to be the god of chaos or mischief, or some shit like that. Any relation, Thunder-man?"

Loki had reached my car before I had, and was staring at the crimson hood so venomously I thought he was going to peel her paint. His body was as still as Walt Disney trapped on ice, only Loki was full of hot tension instead of cold death. Anger rolled off of him in waves. He wheeled around to face me, his handsome face a stone mask of barely contained anger.

"Do you ever shut up?!" he shouted, pounding his fist on Phoenix's hood. Without thinking, I lurched forward, grabbing his wrist. I ripped his hand away from my baby's frame, running my palm over the metal to check for any dents. A sigh of relief heaved from my chest when I found none. Once I knew that my car was free of knuckle marks, I turned furious eyes on the British space viking.

"Hit my car like that again and you'll never hear the end of it," I growled. Then, with a bob of my head, I added, "Ya know, until I killed you for hitting my car."

The tall man stared at me with affronted indignation. The emotion changed to amusement within the space of a millisecond. "You honestly think you can kill me?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at my glower.

"I'd honestly try, and that's good enough for me," I said, smoothing my hand over Phoenix's hood once more. I threatened the lives of people who drifted to close to her on the road. No one, not even a stranger, was exempt from the protectiveness I had for my car. She was my oldest, most cherished companion, which was more than anyone else in my life could lay claim to.

Loki studied me for a second, an unrecognizable emotion passing over his shadowed face. "You'd really attempt to kill me simply for hitting your car?" I quickly pegged the unnamed emotion as realization. It's so nice when people understand just how serious you are, especially when it comes to threatening their lives.

"Yes," I replied curtly. I muttered soothing words to my love, making sure I instilled in her my sincerest apologies about the mean man who'd knocked her around, before turning back to Loki with a resigned sigh. This guy may be a hot nut job, but at least I could be semi-civil while he was being a royal prick. After all, he had somehow ended up in the middle of the New Mexico desert, and that couldn't do anything good for a person's psyche. And maybe, just maybe, my civility would make him change his condescending tune."I'm sorry I asked so many questions so quickly. You must still be reeling from . . . however the hell you managed to get out here. So, I'll ask one question at a time."

"I do not have to reply," he stated dismissively. He stared out at the darkness beyond the hood, a sure sign that he meant exactly what he said. I frowned at him for a long second, wondering if he'd ever talked to his parents like that when he was a kid. I was guessing he hadn't because, though he may be whacked, he seemed to be in pretty good shape otherwise.

"That won't stop me from asking," I said stubbornly. I folded my arms over my stomach and leaned my butt against Phoenix's body. My ankles crossed, and I was happy that I hadn't worn any jeans with holes in them for once in my life. It was simply too cold for destroyed demin. My black combat boots were probably dusted with a fine layer of sand, as was my ass. My jacket hugged the gentle swell of my arms. I was happy I'd thought to bring the jacket. Somehow a Led Zeppelin t-shirt just didn't cut it during a desert night. The jacket hugged my curves, wonderfully framing my hourglass figure. I'd been told on multiple occasions that I had a big ass, and tig ol' bitties. I was never sure if that was a compliment or an insult. I counted it as a compliment, especially when they asked how I got my waist to be so tiny.

I stared up at Loki, and he returned the favor. My stare was stubborn and filled with its usual quiet determination; his was confounded and filled with wonder. His eyebrows were drawn down over his wide eyes, his mouth was set in a thin line. I could almost smell the smoke from the wheels whizzing around in his head.

"Ask your questions, woman," he said after a few moments of whistling wind filling the silence between us.

"How'd you get here?" I asked.

"The BiFrost," he said, as if it explained everything. It didn't. For all I knew a BiFrost was a new car hot off the German factory line. It actually sounded more like Dr. Freeze's car, though, if I was being honest with myself.

I stared at him expectantly, waiting for more clarification as to what exactly a BiFrost was. He, seemingly intelligent man that he might have been, picked up on my unspoken hint. His mouth quirked slightly and he rolled his shoulders backward, straightening his spine to stand taller. I fought away a frown, using the logic that everyone towered over me, therefore there was no need to get a Napoleon complex.

"It is a rainbow bridge. It is how my people travel the nine realms of the universe," he said. "It allows us to go wherever we please."

"And that's what the glowy cloud thing was?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. An alarm went off in the back of my brain, alerting me to the fact that I'd completely missed something. I backpedaled inside my own head. "Nine realms?"

"Yes," he said, his lips twisting a little. "Asgard is one of the nine realms of the universe. It is where I am from. It is far from here. Farther, even, than your Milky Way. The BiFrost is how my people move between the realms." Well, at least he explained it a little. It didn't help me much, but it was something.

"Okay," I nodded, trying to make as much sense of what I was hearing as possible. "The cloud thing must happen every time you use it then. Sounds like a fun deal. But, if you can go anywhere in the universe...why did you come to Earth? This place sucks."

A smile finally broke free on his lips, defying his obvious attempts to keep the flash of teeth from coming to fruition. I was glad to see that me pessimism for my planet brought him an ounce of joy. Well, it wasn't so much joy, actually. It was more of a moderate cheer that brought on the stunted grin.

"Your planet does not suck as much as you think," he said, still flashing a perfect set of pearly whites. I raised an eyebrow at him. Was he serious with that?

"It doesn't? We have countries tuggin' on their jock straps to get out the itch of wanting to go to war, and sometimes they do go to war when they refuse to reach in and scratch their boys like intelligent human beings. We have reality stars who have no talents except shopping and throwing hissy fits that even two-year-olds would deem immature. We have crappy musicians who seriously need music lessons from Freddie Mercury. But, we don't have Freddie Mercury anymore because he died from fucking AIDS! We have AIDS! We have an abundance of ill-informed, ignorant, fatass douchebags who do nothing but suck up government money and pop out idiotic offspring. Our ecosystem is rapidly dying because of all the pollution that has been building up for centuries, which is helping in slowly killing the huge human population. One day on a New York City street makes you want to kill yourself and pray that the Hindus were wrong about reincarnation. As far as I can see, there are maybe, _maybe, _ten out of 6 billion people that are actually worth anything, and the only redeeming quality that this planet has is the raw beauty of untouched nature, which is rapidly being ripped to shreds by back hoes and CEO's trying to make a quick buck. So, why is it so great again?"

In the splash of moonlight, Loki's eyes were wide. I could've sworn that they were twinkling in unison with the stars flickering overhead. His eyebrows were somewhere near his hairline, and his mouth twisted up in a smile so small that it looked like a shade of a smirk. Overall, he looked pleasantly surprised with my sudden rant.

"Are you always this negative?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at me. He took a step toward me, letting a full-blown smirk slide into place on his lips.

"No," I shrugged awkwardly. It's quite difficult to perform a smooth shrug when your arms are locked under your tits. "You just caught me on bad day."

"Perhaps on a good day you'd see all that this world has to offer," he said, taking another step toward me. Oh, he was an optimist. We were going to get along just fine when I came down off of my pessimistic high.

"Perhaps. But first I have to have a good day," I said. I tried my best to make a joke out of the cynical works by twisting my own mouth into a half grin.

"Do you not have those often?" he asked. Apparently my attempt at lightening my words had failed miserably. The man hadn't even hinted that he'd caught on to the joke. I was going to have to work on my subtle humor. I was also going to have to work on where, exactly, to drop Loki off.

"Not really. Do you need a ride somewhere? Or were you planning on staying out here all night?"

His eyes widened again. Either I was surprising him some more, or he kept getting stabbed by a sand spur. I was going with the first one. Sand spurs tended to make people's eyes pucker, not widen. Actually, sand spurs tended to make people curse the very existence of sand. Okay, maybe that last one was just me.

"Take me to the nearest hotel," he said. Well, he ordered it really. Even if he wasn't a king from another planet...er, realm, he certainly had the regal role down pat. I stared up at him, wondering how hard he hit his head when he fell from the BiFrost. I still thought it sounded like a car, or maybe even a biplane that was painted blue. The biplane would make a hell of a lot more sense. I pushed away from Phoenix, uncrossing my ankles and arms in one seamless motion. I took one large step towards the passenger side door and swung it open for his nutty highness.

"Your majesty," I said wryly. Loki looked at me approvingly, and slid his tall frame into the car. I shut the door for him. I made my way to the driver's side door, all the while wondering where the hell I was going to take him. Pulling open my door, I plopped behind the wheel. I was reaching out to close the door when I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. Well, I caught a glimpse of my hair, really. Of course, how could I not, especially when the wind had effectively shaped it into a follicle tornado. I snapped back to look at myself in the mirror, happy as 400 year old clam that hadn't yet been found and shucked, that I'd installed a roof light.

"Holy hell. I look like I just walked out of a hurricane," I griped, smoothing down my unruly dark brown locks. Frizz refused my attempts to flatten it, popping back up the second my fingers slid by the thick strands.

I sunk my teeth into my full bottom lip as I concentrated on fixing the rat's nest that was my hair. Finally, I decided to screw it and ended up pulling it back in a messy ponytail. Pulling my hair away from my face tended to take emphasis away from my icy blue eyes, but I was okay with that if it meant that my hair wouldn't look like I'd taken styling tips from Doc Brown. My eyes would still be icy blue, and would still be framed by their thick black lashes. My usually ghostly pale skin was tinted pink from the cold, making my oval face look like a dyed Easter egg. My dark eyebrows were sticking up in all directions. I couldn't win. I was just grateful that my slim nose hadn't decided to start running. I hated sniffling every five seconds. I smoothed my eyebrows down and deemed myself acceptable enough to be seen in public. The fact that there was no public around to see me was completely beside the point.

"Are you done?" Loki asked. I turned to find him staring at me impatiently.

The second I gave him full view of my face, his expression changed. I could relate, because the second I saw him in the light, the wind rushed out of my lungs quicker than Mario Andretti hitting top speed on a race track. His hair was black, like I'd originally thought. It was slicked back from his face in a straight line of darkness past his shoulders. His skin was paler than I'd thought, though, and his cheekbones were less soft than the moonlight had made them out to be. His lips were a touch fuller than I'd thought, as well, yet were still thin and perfect. I scanned my way up his face, and had to bite my tongue to keep myself from gasping. His eyes were a bright, murky blue-gray, as though the waters of the Floridian Gulf had been thrust into his irises. They were a stark contrast against the darkness of his eyebrows and the paleness of his skin.

His eyes widened when I turned my gaze on them fully, and his pupils dilated drastically. His lips parted slightly. I could've sworn I'd heard him release a subtly shaky breath. It was barely audible, but in such close quarters, there was no way I wasn't going to hear it. I clamped my own full lips together, hoping I wouldn't follow suit and let out a hopelessly dreamy sigh.

_Cool it, Alex,_ I thought to myself. _He's just a good looking guy who's sitting in your car and gawking at you. There is no reason to freak out. Just be your normal, snarky self and everything will be peachy keen._

I gathered my wits up, shoved them back into my ear holes so they could wriggle their way back into my brain, and turned my attention back onto my reflection. With a nonchalant shrug, I assessed myself in the mirror once again and said, as normally as I could, "This is as good as it's gonna get, so yeah."

A whoop of victory lodged itself in my throat. I was proud of me for not letting myself turn into a gelatinous blob at his beauty. I was damn near certain that not many women could say that. I leaned out and pulled my door closed, nearly dropping my keys between the seats as I pulled them from the folds of leather my leather jacket when Loki said, "You look beautiful as you are." So much for not turning into a gelatinous blob! I was going to have to scrub Nix's seats!

After a few minutes of clumsy fumbling and mumbled apologies, I was able to close my fingers around my keys properly. I fished them out from between the leather, trying my damndest to not turn my blushing cheeks up to face Loki. When I managed to glance up at the hot, crazy, unattainable dude, I found that his face was impassive, yet his eyes were expectant, like he hadn't just turned me into a bumbling moron. He was waiting for me to turn the car on and take him to a hotel.

I mumbled out something akin to "thhhmsfmm" before obliging him by turning over the ignition and flooring it toward the nearest town. All the while, the whoop of victory died a slow, painful death behind my sternum.


	2. A Wrench in the Machine

___Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. This is all for fun; not monetary values._

_Chapter 2: A Wrench in the Machine_

The desert stretched itself out before us in mile upon mile of snake infested terrain. Loki had become silent after my stunning display of idiocy. Because I wasn't good at small talk, especially after embarrassing moments, the car was filled with an awkward silence that was thick enough that only a chainsaw would've been able to cut it. Unfortunately for me and my new companion, Phoenix hated awkward crickets, so she decided to die and give us something to talk about.

Her body began shaking violently, causing my heart to turn into Speedy Gonzales.

"Baby? What are you doing?" I asked her, running my hand over the black steering wheel in a comforting gesture.

"What is wrong with your machine?" Loki asked, his eyes darting around the shadowed interior.

"I-I don't know," I replied, shakily, panic turning my voice into a glass shattering soprano. My eyes mimicked his and skimmed over her console, checking for an overheated engine or low fuel light. Before I had time to register that the console would give me nothing but my speed, Phoenix turned herself off and we rolled to a stop.

"Goddammit, Phoenix! No!" I cried, switching off her ignition. "Don't do this to Mama!"

Loki was watching me like I'd sprouted a second head as I started petting her dashboard. "Phoenix? Mama?"

"Phoenix is what I named my car," I said, sucking in a deep breath to keep myself from snapping at him. He didn't make her crap out, therefore, he didn't deserve the brunt of my worried-mama-bear wrath. I shoved my door open and stepped out, popping the hood and spewing obscenities as I went.

"Do all humans name their machines?" Loki asked as he, too, removed himself from Phoenix's interior.

"Only the ones that care," I answered, lifting the hood and propping it up. We were still miles away from the nearest town, and I was pretty sure my flashlight was on it's last leg of life. I really needed to start carrying spare batteries in my glove compartment.

I stalked past Loki with my shoulders around my ears and my hands balled into tight fists. I looked like a disgruntled cartoon character. At least, I certainly thought I did once I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. My head was pulled down to my chest and my shoulders were reaching for the sky like they were in a B-list Western. My face was contorted with worry, anger, and panic, and my icy blue eyes were so wide that I looked like a Philippine Tarsier strung out on crack.

Flopping into the passenger seat, I popped open the glove box and rummaged around for my light stick. Thankfully, I was able to find it without too much of a problem, and made my way back to the front of the car to survey the damage in the engine. I clicked on the light and scanned the ray over the engine. My eyes finally found the problem, and did an abrupt double take. A stream of creative curse words sprung to the tip of my tongue, but only one seemed to fit the situation perfectly: we were fucked. Her timing belt had snapped, so we were up shit creek without a boat, much less a paddle.

"We're fucked," I stated, curtly.

"Pardon?" Loki asked, his eyebrows shooting up on his pale forehead.

"Her belt snapped," I huffed, lowering the hood closed. I clicked off the flashlight and shoved it into my jacket pocket."We're stranded here unless I can get a signal on my phone."

"Please tell me that this is some idiotic form of a human joke," he said, his teeth bared in a smile that a shark, or a lawyer, would be envious of.

"My car is the only thing I don't joke about," I said, settling my eyes on him as I dug into my the pocket of my jeans for my cell phone. Fishing it out, I held it up to the sky in search of a signal. The only time I found even a mildly strong signal, I was pressed against my car as if I was going to give her a lap dance. Hell, maybe a lap dance would kick start her heart.

_Fat chance_, I thought to myself. _One of your lap dances couldn't kick start the heart of Pacemaker patient._

I shoved my internal dialogue aside and dialed the only number in my emergency arsenal: my mechanic. I leaned over the hood of Phoenix, resting my elbows on the crimson-painted metal with the phone pressed to my ear. Thankfully, it was ringing loud and clear.

On the fifth ring, my handy dandy grease monkey, Ronan, picked up with a pissy baritone mumble.

"Can't understand ya, peach," I said, clapping my hand on the hood.

"I said, you better be getting attacked by a gang of rapey, homicidal ninjas," he said more clearly. His voice was tired and gravelly, like he'd just woken up from a deep sleep. Oops.

"What time is it?" I asked, looking at my wrist for a watch I didn't have, or even own, for that matter.

"Half past I'm going to kill you. If you want to know the time, look at a fucking clock, Lex." Geeze, you'd think he was tired.

"I am not Superman's arch nemesis. And I didn't call you to ask for the time, asshat. My car broke down. Her belt decided to make like a divorced couple and split."

"So call a tow truck and bring her in tomorrow morning," he grumbled.

"If I call a tow truck, I'll be paying them a thousand bucks for the drive alone," I said, putting my unhappiness into my voice.

"I guess that means you want me to come and get you?" he asked, not sounding pleased by the prospect.

"Me, my car, and a guest. Pretty please with a whiskey shot on top?"

"A guest? You finally started picking up man whores?" he asked, a hint of wry jesting leaking into his tired tone.

"You know damn well I can't afford them," I said dryly. "Otherwise you'd never see me."

He let out a deep laugh and I could almost picture him shaking his head of light brown hair. "Fine. I'll come get you. Where are you this time?"

I looked around. If my calculations were correct, I was about 25 miles west of the small town where both I and Ronan currently resided. It was quite small. It only had a population of about 9000. And I swear, the only reason I stayed there was because of Ronan. Okay, so maybe I did have a friend other than Phoenix. And he was about to kill me.

"I'm about 25 miles west of the town," I said, timidly.

"WHAT?!" he shouted. I yanked the phone away from my ear to keep myself from getting a broken eardrum. I could still hear him clear as day with the phone held at arm's length away from my head. Jesus, Mary and, Jehosephine, that man had a set of pipes. "What are you doing way the hell out there?! Are you crazy?! What if a scorpion stung you! You could be dead right now! Hell, your car is dead right now! What is the matter with you?!"

Slowly, I returned the phone to my ear and said his name, trying to get his attention. "Ronan." He kept ranting. "Ronan!" I said a little louder, attempting to get him to shut up. He didn't. "RONAN!"

His endless yammering abruptly stopped with a loud, "WHAT?!"

"I don't need you to be my mother. I need you to be my knight in shining tow truck. Now pull on some clothes and get out here!"

Ronan was silent for a few seconds. I listened carefully for any signs of life on the other side of the phone line. I couldn't even hear creeper breathing. I'd thought I'd pissed him off to the point that he'd hung up, and was about to call his name when he said, "Make my whiskey a double."

"Hun, I'll make your whiskey a bottle if you do this for me," I said, holding back a relieved sigh.

"How about a double and you let me get to second base?" he asked.

"How about a bottle and I'll only imagine punching you in the face for that last part?" I asked, lifting my eyebrows and smiling sweetly, as if he could see me through the receiver.

He laughed again and I pictured him running his fingers through his short hair. "Fine, fine. I'll be good. Don't let the guest ninja kill you before I get there."

"I won't, Ro," I smiled.

"Ugh! Why do you call me that?! You know I hate that name!" he groused.

"To get a rise out of you," I grinned. "Besides, Ro is better than Nan. Or Ron." I shuddered verbally and physically. "God, that's a creepy name."

"You're lucky I like you, Lex," he mumbled. I opened my mouth to respond with a sarcastic comment, but he cut me off. "By the way, it's one in the morning." The phone clicked off and the line went dead.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and smirked. I was lucky that he liked me, otherwise he would've kicked my ass to the curb a long time ago. The fact that he was willing to pick me up in the middle of nowhere at one in the morning was a testament to how much the poor bastard liked me. The fact that he was willing to do it also made me feel kind of crappy. Here I was, dragging him from his warm bed to make him come pick up my crazy ass, and another person of whom I'd just met, and he asked for nothing in return except for monetary values for reparations of vehicular parts. I either needed to buy him a case of beer and a hooker, or a fruit basket. I was betting that he'd like the beer and prosti-hoe better.

I sighed and looked up, nearly jumping out of my meat suit when I saw Loki standing on the other side of Phoenix's hood. I'd entirely forgotten that he was there, even though Ronan had just mentioned a killer guest ninja.

"Jesus Christ!" I yipped, clutching a hand to my chest.

"Did I frighten you?" he asked. I could've sworn I saw a smile tug at his lips in the darkness.

"Only because I forgot you were there," I replied honestly, taking in a deep, calming breath to slow down my heart rate. I shoved the phone back in my pocket, trying to will myself to be the hard ass I claimed to be.

"Am I really so forgettable?" he asked, slowly making his way around the front of Phoenix.

"You are when I have a shitty memory," I responded, giving him a nervous smile.

"I'm glad to hear that it is not I that is at fault for forgetting my presence," he said. He was now on my side of the car and was inching his way toward me slowly. I felt like the cheese in a rat maze, just waiting for a vicious beast to pounce on me with gnarly, gnashing teeth. Only this particular beast wasn't a ball of fur and had perfect pearly whites that probably didn't do too well with gnashing. At least, that's what I hoped.

"Well, it's partially your fault. You were being pretty damn quiet. Then again, it's also Ronan's fault for being a distracting asshole. And, it's of course my fault for having the combined memory of a goldfish and an amoeba. So, the blame doesn't lie solely on any one person," I explained, staring up at him, my nervous smile turning into a goofy, lopsided grin.

He looked down at me like my second head had grown in as a goblin shark and was trying to gnaw on my earlobe. My grin fell a little. Here I was thinking I was all clever with my rationalization and my analogies, and there he was looking at me like I was the dumbest human being alive. My ego, the little bit of it that I possessed, felt like it had been crushed.

After realizing that not having an ego had never stopped me from being a snarky bitch before, I raised a challenging eyebrow at him and asked, "What?"

He grinned down at me, an almost sweet smile that made my toes tingle. I wiggled the appendages inside of their black leather casing to rid them of the alien feeling.

"You are unlike any creature I have ever met before. You confuse me," he said, that smile still on his face.

"I confuse everyone. Hell, I even confuse myself most of the time," I said, pulling myself up to sit on the hood of my car. I crossed my legs at the ankles and leaned forward, propping myself up on my hands. I stroked my fingers in small circles over Phoenix's smooth surface.

"Do you confuse this Ronan person as well?" he asked, moving to stand in front of my knees.

"All the time. Ronan is gonna give us a lift, by the way, so we're not fucked. He'll be here soon."

"And where is he lifting us to, exactly?" Loki asked, placing his hands on either side of my own.

"Hopefully, my place, " I answered, giving a little shrug of my shoulders.

"Your place?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, " I nodded. I leaned toward him a bit more to make an empathetic connection with him, which I doubted he'd care about. "Look, I know you wanted to go to a hotel, but all we have is crappy motels that like to lock their doors after ten at night. And seeing as how it's currently 1 A.M., I highly doubt that you'd be able to get a room tonight. So, I figured I'd be a good Samaritan and let you stay at my place for the night. Provided you don't kill me, of course."

He grinned up at me, perplexed and amused all at once.

"I won't kill you." he stated, "You have my word."

"Good," I said, returning a smile to his good-natured grin. I thrust a hand forward to seal the deal with, and he let it hang in the air like an awkward boner. "Shake to make it solid," I said by way of explanation.

"Make what solid?" he asked. His smile turned into an abrupt frown and he flicked his gaze down to my hand, then back up to my eyes. "Your hand looks solidified to me."

"We're not shaking to make my hand solid. We're shaking to make your word solid. Shaking my hand is basically saying that your word is your bond and that you won't break it." I clarified. "And that if you do, I have every right to cut your dick off and feed it to coyotes."

His frown deepened, and he glanced down at my extended phalanges again. "What is a coyote and why would you feed my...how did you put it?...dick to one?"

"It's a type of canine that hunts for food and isn't adverse to being a scavenger every once in a while. And I'd only do that if you broke your word."

"You'd feed my dick, whatever that may be, to a canine if I broke my promise not to kill you? You would be dead if I broke that promise," he analyzed, staring up at me.

Oooh, he did not know who he was dealing with. I gave him a disapproving look, like he was a slow drunkard who couldn't sit himself on a bar stool properly.

"I'd travel through the astral plane until I found a voodoo priestess to resurrect me so I could roam around until I found you and cut off your manly bits." I said it like that kind of stuff happened on a daily basis.

"My manly bits?" he asked, arching an eyebrow quizzically. Okay, so maybe he was from another realm of existence.

My face fell. My eyebrows formed a hard line and my eyes halfway hooded themselves as my mouth turned as level as the horizon.

"The dangly things between your legs," I said, perking up left side of my upper lip.

Loki's spine straightened almost painfully and his eyes widened.

"Ah," he said, curtly. "Well, we certainly wouldn't want that to happen."

His eyes moved between my hand and my eyes, and finally, with as much dignity as he could after being told that I'd remove his reproductive system, he slipped his hand into mine.

His hand was large and warm, and enveloped my much smaller hand as if he were a blanket and I, a premature kitten. It felt has if my hand was a ball of static electricity, tingly and full of bright blue charges. I firmly squeezed his hand to make the pact solid on my end. He ended the shake and sealed his end of the deal by twisting my hand over and lifting the back of my pale extremity to his soft lips. My skin ignited almost painfully as his silky mouth pressed against my skin. As his eyes found mine, I knew that this man could charm a king into giving up everything that the crowned monarch had even thought of owning. I also had the distinct feeling that he could charm the queen into running away with him if it suited his dastardly needs.

I gave him a small smile and pulled my hand away to rest it, palm down, on the hood of Phoenix. My body thrummed with an unnatural electricity. It creeped me out.

"So, now that I know you won't kill me, may I ask what Asgard is like?" I motioned to his strange garments with a nod of my head. You knew I was uncomfortable when I played into a crazy, hot man's delusions of grandeur.

"Asgard is a beautiful place," he started, stepping away from me. He motioned his upturned palm to the spot on the hood next to me, and raised his eyebrows. "May I?"

I nodded and patted the spot to my right. "Hop on up." He did.

Although, he really didn't have to hop. All he had to do was sit on the edge and scoot himself back. Tall ass. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his spread knees and stared out across the black horizon.

"Like I stated before, Asgard is a beautiful place. It is not round, like your planet is. It is actually quite flat. We have tall, metal spires that stretch towards the sky sitting amidst lush gardenscapes. There are beautiful lakes and waterfalls, each more gorgeous than the last. Even the peasants have households that would be fit for Earth's kings. On any given day, we can look in the sky and see the stars or our moons. The palace though, is perhaps the most stunning of all. It is monumental and wonderfully crafted by hand. It is a place that is unmatched by anything else in the nine realms. It is truly indescribable," he said, almost longingly.

I listened to him, drawn in by his accent and smooth voice. His voice was like a long forgotten waterfall; smooth, fluid, beautiful beyond compare, and so easy to drown in. He could read the phone book and I'd have been lost to the world for an eternity. As I watched and listened, he paused and looked up at the stars in the same way I had been doing before he'd fallen from the sky. He looked at them as though they were a place that held many great joys, and many soul-crushing heartbreaks.

Someone who so thoroughly expressed such emotions about a certain place had either been there, or was so off the wall insane that they'd only thought they'd been there. I wasn't entirely sure which of those two Loki was just yet.

"It sounds incredible," I said, ripping my gaze away from the mournful sight of his sad face to stare at the stars with him.

"It is," he agreed.

He didn't elaborate, and I didn't push him. I became entangled with the stars once more. I stared up at their shimmering forms, wondering what it would be like to travel through the inky darkness of the universe. I wondered what it would be like to fly past a nebula that might as well have been a rainbow ball of clouds and stars and sparks. I wondered what life on Asgard would be like, if it really existed. I would probably never leave whatever gardens they had. I'd just sit and stare at the stars, or read all day and night while lounging next to a waterfall. I'd probably marvel at the buildings. If their peasants lived like kings, one could only imagine what their actual king lived like.

"Loki?" I asked, my eyes still on the sky. I halfway expected the weight of his gaze to burn a hole in my head like it had before. Instead I was left with nothing but a warm feeling spreading over the surface of my skin.

"Yes?" he replied.

"What does the rainbow bridge look like?"

I could hear him smile. The quiet sound of lips pulling away from teeth rang in my ears like someone had banged a cowbell against my head. The sounds of his smile was much less painful than a chunk of brass being conked upside my noggin, though. Thankfully.

"Well, it looks like what it is. A bridge made of rainbows. Millions of rainbows forged together to make the strongest bridge that the realms have ever known. Though it feels as if it is glass, you cannot see through it. But, if it is broken, it shatters as if it is glass. Every kind of color imaginable pulses through that bridge. It is truly a magnificent sight to behold."

As he explained the bridge, I formed an image of it in my mind. It was probably immensely inaccurate, but it was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever imagined.

I tried to shake the insane notion of there actually being a real Rainbow Bridge and another realm called Asgard, but for some equally insane reason, I couldn't manage to do it. Wishful thinking is a powerful thing.

"It sounds breathtaking," I said, tearing my eyes away from the night sky to look at Loki. I was surprised to find him already looking at me. I still didn't feel that burning of my holes being seared into my brainpan, but I did still feel that all-over warmth. A mack truck of realization plowed over me. I hadn't been that warm all night long. Only when I'd started staring at the stars did the heat wash over me. And the heat wasn't from my jacket either; it was from his unwavering gaze.

"I've never found a being alive that did not think the bridge awe-inspiring," he said, giving me a crooked little smile.

"And I doubt you ever will," I smiled back. His eyes fluttered down my face and the front of my body until he pulled his gaze away to watch over the empty desert in front of us. I dropped my own sight to my lap where my fingers were nervously twisting at each other. Good grief, it felt like I was on an awkward first date! And that, in and of itself, was a ridiculous notion. It was made all the more ridiculous by the fact that the stranger sitting next to me claimed to be a space alien, and was a walking bag of mysteries.

He falls from the sky and says that he is the rightful king to another world. He tries to assert his royal authority over me while acting condescending at the same time. And then he suddenly changes gears and he's Joey Suave, with the hand kisses and the longing explanations of his world. I was not at all sure how to handle this guy, or what to even think of him. And what was with his clothes?

I looked back up and scanned my gaze over his body, trying to identify the fabric that he was wearing. After not being able to even come up with a minor idea of what the fabric was, I decided to ask him straight out.

"What kind of fabric is that?"

He lifted his head to look at me, then brought his head down to look at his clothes. Running a hand over the bright green lapels, he looked back up at me. I honestly couldn't say exactly how I knew the true colors of his clothes, especially in the darkness. Perhaps my brain stored the memory of what he was wearing when we had been sitting in the pool of light that my car had offered.

"It is a durable fabric that you've more than likely not heard of as only my world creates it. It acts as a light armor," he said.

I leaned forward to inspect the fabric, but I couldn't see due to the lack of light that I somehow kept forgetting about. I reached a hand forward, wanting to run my fingers over the brushed metal and leathery fabric, but pulled away when I realized that touching anyone without permission, let alone a space viking who claimed to be royalty, was rude. I sat up straight and looked at him, putting as much respect into my eyes as I could, even though I was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to distinguish it from any other emotion in the darkness of the night.

"May I?" I asked, pointing a finger at his lapels.

He hesitated for a moment, his upper body twisting itself away from me as if he was preparing for a fight. I started letting my hand fall back to my lap, resigning to the fact that he didn't want me touching him, when he nodded.

"You may," he said, firmly yet gently. It was like we were having a heartfelt moment simply from me asking to touch his clothes.

A goofy smile tried to creep across my lips but I forced it back with a nod of my head and a bite of my cheek. "Thank you," I said.

I reached forward again and took hold of his lapel in my fingers. The emerald green side of the lapel was smooth and soft, almost like a high quality suede, but tougher. The other side was a combination of bumpy and smooth, but slightly slick, leathery material, only it was much harder than any leather I'd ever come across. It felt like it was just like he said it was: a light armor. I'd never felt any fabric like it these ones before.

My hand traveled across his chest, finding the U-shaped band of gold-colored metal there. It was cool and hard under my fingertips, and it didn't yield when I put pressure on it. I put both hands on the strip of brushed steel-like material and followed the shape up, pushing back the shoulders of his trenchcoat as I did.

The right side the coat gave way easily. The left stayed in place, for the most part. I trailed my eyes down and found a strap swung across his chest and belly. Laying my hands flat against the harder leather on his chest, I traced my way down the lapels of coat until I came in contact with the strap. It was the same tough yet pliable material that made up his trenchcoat and had a long band of metal in the middle of it. I followed it up, knowing that following it down would be inappropriate even for me. The strap ended on his left shoulder, and disappeared into another metal piece that had obviously been crafted to fit his frame. I gingerly ran my fingers over the ridges, welts, and bumps in the forged metal piece.

"Whoever made this really knows their way around a blacksmith shop," I said, studying the metal pieces with awe. "These are exquisite. And the fabric...it's so strong and durable. It's beautiful."

"I agree whole-heartedly, " he said, unmoving under my wandering hands. I looked up at him only to become incredibly confused and wonderfully astounded. At some point during my explorations of Loki's clothes, I'd slipped off of Phoenix's hood and positioned myself in front of the astonishingly handsome man. I was now standing in between his legs with my nose two inches from his. His eyes were sparkling again, and full of some unknown emotion that the shadows wouldn't allow to be revealed.

I studied his face in the starlight, entranced by how the minimal light carved harsh definition into his cheekbones. How could someone so gorgeous literally fall into my life? I wasn't that lucky even on my best day. There had to be something that this man was hiding that made his beauty null and void. Perhaps the secret was that he was a nut job. Perhaps he was a serial killer who took a drastic approach to Ted Bundy's original MO. Perhaps I was overthinking, and should just shut up and soak up the fact that physical perfection was less than a foot away.

I focused on studying Loki's beauty in the moonlight, and it seemed that he did the same to me. After what felt like only a few short moments, a harsh light ripped through the night and stole our collective concentration away from us.


	3. A Perplexed Pal

_____Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. This is all for fun; not monetary values._

_Chapter 3: A Perplexed Pal_

I turned toward the source of migraine inducing light rays, feeling a real disappointment for the lost moment. I really needed to get my head checked if I thought I was having a heartfelt moment with an alien stranger. Thankfully, the source was Ronan coming to save the morning with his Tow Truck of Epicness. Suddenly, the light wasn't so unbearable. Gods bless the man for getting there in record time, and saving my stupid ass from wanting to kiss a kook.

I shoved myself away from the kook in question and Phoenix, like a teen who'd just been caught with her hand down her boyfriend's pants, and waved at the approaching knight in shining Dodge Ram. He slowed his truck to a stop a few meters away from the nose of Phoenix and put it in park before he hopped out.

Ronan was as beautiful as Loki, only in a different way. Ronan was the kind of guy you'd find in a Hollywood action movie, where Loki would probably a university professor that had a ton of students fawning over him. Ronan was six foot four and packed with hard muscle. Every time I watched him move, I waited for his biceps to rip his shirt to shreds. Ronan was built like a sexy brick house, with wide, firm shoulders, arms that Andre the Giant probably couldn't wrap his hands around, and a six pack that was hard enough that you could use it to grate cheese. I was pretty sure that all the man did was work out, fix cars, and eat protein bars. He had light brown hair that was cut short, and currently messy with sleep, with a pair of perfectly full lips set above a square jaw. His eyebrows were full over emerald green eyes and a slim, straight nose.

While I was busy gawking at him, like I horrible had a tendency to do, I somehow failed to notice him bounding toward me at full speed until he'd scooped me off of the ground. I let out a pathetic squeak as he wrapped his arms around my legs and flung me over his broad left shoulder. The air in my lungs decided to abort the mission of breathing and manned the escape pods, leaving me gasping for oxygen.

"Hi Alex! How are you?" Ronan chirped, sounding far too cheery for someone whom I'd just woken up at a God awful hour.

"Trying to breathe," I gasped. "Whatever you do, don't fart."

"Hey, the beans gotta go somewhere," he joked.

"Do it and I'm stabbing you in your ass cheek, " I warned, slowly lifting up his leather jacket. The air finally learned that the mission of life needed to be completed and found its way back into my system.

"You're no fun," he whined, bouncing my body on his shoulder to shift me so I didn't fall into the dust. I let out a little 'oof" sound and contemplated where to hide his sexy body. Surely, both Loki and I could manage to lift that much dead weight if we tried hard enough.

"I'll be a barrel of monkeys if you put me down," I said as sweetly as I could manage.

"Who's this, then?" he asked, completely ignoring me. The ground rushed by beneath his feet as he made his way towards Loki. I wondered if throwing up in his back pocket would make him put me down. Deciding that it would be a bad idea, I sighed and continued my task of pulling up layers of fabric so I could reach the tan skin underneath.

"Ronan, this is-"

"I am Loki of Asgard," Loki said, cutting off my attempt at introducing them.

One of Ronan's hands left my legs, and I knew that he was holding out his hand as a polite greeting. Good Guy Ronan. Saving the day, picking up damsels in distress, and greeting passers-by. All in a hero's days' work, I guess!

"I'm Ronan Donaghue of Texas. Nice to meet ya, Loki, " Ronan said, still sounding far too cheery. I was starting to think that the cheer was a mask for contempt. He couldn't possibly be that happy about being in the middle of a desert at one in the morning to help me and my new acquaintance.

I finally made it down to Ronan's back skin. With all the layers he had on, you'd think he'd planned on standing in a meat freezer for a few hours. Granted, in the winter time, that's exactly what the desert became. But, it wasn't winter time yet. The freak.

I waited until I felt his hand clamp back down on my legs, and then I mercilessly pinched his back, pulling out the tiny peach-fuzz hairs as I did.

"Ow! Ow! Jesus!" he yipped, squirming. He took a few steps away from Loki and arched his back in a feeble attempt to get away from my pincers. "Stop it!"

"Putmedown!" I rapidly ordered, not relenting in my tweezing torture.

He was running in circles now trying to escape. I could only imagine how utterly idiotic we looked to Loki. It was enough to make me laugh out loud.

"Stop pinching!" Ronan yelled, still trying to get away. It seemed he either liked the pain or he was so tired that it wasn't registering in his brain to just drop me in the dirt.

"Put me down!" I repeated, still tweaking at his skin. "I will kidney shot you! I repeat, I will kidney shot you!"

"Alright! Enough!" Ronan shouted.

Before I had time to even think of blinking, I was on my ass in the sand staring up at a grimacing man who was huffing for air. He rubbed a hand over his sore skin, and I had to force a frown on my face. The last time I felt victorious, the moment had been horribly crushed under the weight of defeat. Come to think of it, that had been about thirty minutes ago. I got on my feet and aimed my mock frown at Ronan as I spiked my fist into his arm.

"Ow!" he winced, grasping his bicep. "What? Pinching the shit out of me wasn't enough? Now you're gonna beat me up, too?"

I hit him again on his other arm and gave him a toothy grin. "Yep."

"OW! God, you're mean," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.

"I never claimed to be burdened by the confines of kindness," I said with a smirk.

He seemed to give that a moment of thought, rolling his eyes upward for a brief moment. He gave a curt nod, apparently deciding that I wasn't bullshitting him. "True. So, what's going on with your car? And where did you say you're from again, Loki?" Ronan asked as he made his way back to Phoenix. I followed on his heels until we reached her, moving to stand by pale figure on the passenger side as Ronan made his way to the driver's side door.

"Asgard," Loki repeated, with the same regal air he'd shown me.

"Huh. Is that in the middle east or something?" Ronan asked, slipping his hand into Phoenix's open driver door to pop the hood.

"Does he sound like he's from the Middle East?" I mumbled to myself, opening my eyes a bit wider for effect. It was stupid of me to mumble to myself, make facial expressions, and then hope no one noticed, but I never claimed to be intelligent, either.

Loki heard my whispered words and gave me a look that I couldn't comprehend. It seemed amused, yet annoyed. How can someone look both amused and annoyed at the same time?

"No, it is not. It is in the fourth r-"

I put a hand on Loki's arm and interrupted him. He might think it was quite rude of me to cut off his answer about the universal realm he'd come from, but tough titty. I was doing it in an effort to keep Ronan from calling the guys in white coats who had hug-me jackets, padded rooms, and amazing drugs.

"It's in the fourth region of Great Britain," I lied. I had no idea if any of England's regions were numbered, so I figured that Ronan didn't either. I also had no idea as to why I was lying to my friend just to help someone who might actually need a straight jacket, but oh well. It was too late to go back now. Nope. If anything I had to forge ahead and dig myself a nice big hole that I wouldn't be able to crawl out of later on. Because that's just how I roll.

Ronan had made his way to the front of Phoenix and had propped up the hood as Loki and I had been speaking. He pulled a flashlight out of one of his many jackets, and flipped it on so he could scan over the engine parts.

"Woah! England, huh? That's pretty neat. You ever been to that palace? What's it called?"

"Buckingham Palace," I offered. I stared at the wheel, hoping that maybe it would act as a conscience and tell me to shut up and stop lying. I had no such luck.

Loki glared down at me with his bright blue-grey eyes, clearly unhappy at my interjection. "No. I have not had the pleasure of going to Buckingham Palace."

"That's a real shame, man. I hear it's a nice place. Of course, it has to be a nice place if a queen lives there," he rambled. I let Ronan talk to the open air about the places he wished he could visit in England. I opted to tune him out in favor of pulling Loki down and explaining why I had so rudely interrupted him.

I grabbed hold of the stiff, leathery collar, dragging the tall man down as I raised up on my tip toes to whisper in his ear.

"I'm sorry I interrupted you, but you can't go telling people that you're from another realm of the universe. Just because I believe you, which I barely do, doesn't mean that others will. People down here aren't very . . . open to things they don't understand. They tend to actually lock up people they don't understand in a padded room and pump them full of drugs, and I don't want that for you. So, ix-nay on the universal ealms-ray, " I whispered rapidly. I was so close to his ear that my breath bounced off of his skin and hit my face in a hot blast of cinnamon scented air.

Loki pulled away just enough to nod. His face was serious as he whispered, "I understand."

I flashed him a relieved smile and turned back to Ronan just in time to catch him lifting his head out from under the blood red hood.

"Well?" I asked, stepping away from Loki to put a comforting hand on my baby's body.

"The belt snapped, alright. I"m gonna have to tow her, just like you said," he admitted.

"You doubted me?" I asked, frowning with mock affront.

"I always doubt you," Ronan smirked.

"Gee. Love you, too, fucker," I said, twisting my lips. He flashed a charming smile at me. It was enough to melt a lesser woman into puddle. Thankfully, I only got a little bit gooey.

The smile faded as a thought passed through his eyes and seized a hold of his brain. "Oh. I'm gonna have to replace a few things in here, as well. They're lookin' pretty worn and it'd be cheaper for you to just replace 'em now."

I raised an eyebrow at him and walked around to the front of the car. "What needs to be replaced?

He skimmed his beam over the engine. I looked down as he named each worn out part, pausing his light where each piece rested within the machine. "Water pump. Belt tensioner. Thermostat. Nothing too major."

"At least it's not a tranny, right?" I asked, smiling weakly. My poor baby was in rough shape.

"Exactly," he nodded, clicking off his flashlight and lowering the hood. "Those transvestites cost a pretty penny. Which I know you don't have."

I pouted, playing a sad child that just heard they weren't getting the toy they wanted. "I want a pretty penny transvestite."

"Close her doors and I'll give you one," Ronan smirked, winking at me.

"Are you gonna dress in drag and tie a red ribbon around your neck for me?" I asked with an innocent, toothy grin.

He shook his head and started walking backwards towards his truck. "No. I was just thinking I could get you Tim Curry."

"He's all old, now. The Frank-N-Furter costume just wouldn't look good on him anymore. I think I'd rather be tranny-less. Thanks."

Ronan chuckled and spun around to ensure that he didn't bust his ass. "Close the doors!" he yelled over his shoulder, laughter still thick in his tone.

I smiled and did as he commanded, closing Phoenix's open driver and passenger doors with the care of a mother. Once my set task was completed, I made my way back over to a silent Loki. He watched Ronan with a cold patronizing gaze as the buff man got in his truck. It was a look that could probably make Stephen Hawking feel like like an incompetent moron. How could this man seem so warm one minute and so hard the next? It was like watching a pendulum swing back and forth on the emotional scale.

As I watched Loki watching Ronan, it dawned on me that I'd once again completely forgotten that the space viking was in our presence. He seemed to fade into the background when Ronan and I were talking, like an armor wrapped fly on the desert wall. Was that why he was glaring at Ronan like he wanted to put thumbtacks in the mechanic's steel-toed boots? Could Loki possibly be pissed because Ronan had caused me to forget about him once again?

"I apologize for disregarding you yet again," I said, deciding to skip the preliminary of asking him if his feelings were hurt. I turned my gaze to the open expanse of land beyond the cars, not really seeing anything but the blackness that enveloped the empty field.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Loki turn to look at me. "You make apologies so quickly," he said in a gentle tone, "as if to clear your head of your misgivings by speaking about them as soon as you possibly can. Yet you have done nothing wrong. Why do you find it necessary to do such a thing?"

I turned my head to look up at him, losing myself in the tornado of thoughts that flooded my mind. Why did I do that? Was it to dispel any guilt that I might feel about a situation? Was it to make other people feel better? Was it because I hated it when I thought that people were mad at me? I didn't know for sure, and it bugged me. A hand brushed my elbow, snapping me back to reality like I was a rubber band. My teeth were worrying away at my bottom lip, and I hadn't even remembered biting it.

"Alex?" Loki asked. He was studying my face as if he were memorizing every last emotion that passed over it. And, Gods, the way he said my name...

"It just clears the air and helps me make sure that no one feels slighted. I find that it's better to ask if I've pissed someone off rather than just assume I've done nothing wrong," I said, using the best explanation I could come up with while shrugging dismissively.

"I can assure you that I do not feel slighted in the least. This man seems to be a friend to you," Loki said, motioning his head toward Ronan, who was busy hooking the towtruck up to my car. Something passed through Loki's eyes as he talked about Ronan. Something that made it look like his royal highness despised the lowly mechanic.

"He is," I nodded, studying the space viking's long, handsome face.

"Then why should I, a being you've only just met, take precedence over a friend?" he asked, giving me a small, reassuring smile. The smile even reached his eyes, forcing out the distaste I'd seen only moments before in favor of an understanding warmth.

I anxiously smiled back. "I never said it was a rational train of thought."

"No, you did not," he replied, his own smile growing into a grin in return.

"So, Loki," Ronan jumped in, "how'd you get out here?"

He was done hooking Phoenix up to the truck I'd affectionately named Big Bubba, and was now waiting for Loki and I to wrap up our little talk so we could head for town.

Loki opened his mouth to speak, and I cut him off before he could so much get out a syllable of the phrase " BiFrost rainbow bridge".

"Hang gliding accident," I blurted out, causing the men to give me two completely different looks. Ronan stared at me with pure disbelief; Loki stared at me with a sense of frustration that quickly morphed into comprehension.

"A hang gliding accident?" Ronan asked incredulously. He looked between me and Loki, waiting for a more elaborate answer. "People hang glide at night now? In that kind of get up?"

"It's a new, underground form of hang gliding for true thrill seekers. The suit is a new aerodynamic design. Plus, it looks really badass," I explained. If I'd lived in backwoods Alabama, I'd have been accused of lying through my tooth. The only thing I hadn't lied about was how badass Loki's clothes were. They were more than likely custom made and fit him like a second skin.

"Since when do aerodynamic hang gliding suits have metal and trenchcoats?" Ronan asked, furrowing his brow.

"Since they figured out that the limited about of metal and the flow of the cape creates just enough weight and drag to keep the hang glider from going berserk in a high wind gust," I fibbed. I was beginning to get worried at how easily I came up with such detailed lies. I was going to have to get that checked out. Maybe I had some sort of disease that made it easy to spin tall tales.

Ronan glared at me. No matter how effective I was at throwing out my logical lies, he was not taking the bait I was trying to feed him. He wasn't entirely ignorant, I could give him that much.

"So what happened in this accident, Loki?" Ronan asked, folding his impressive arms over his chest.

"It all happened so fast," Loki said, huffing out a nervous breath of air. "One moment I was flying through the sky and the next I was lying on the ground. It was quite a whirlwind event."

I stared up at Loki, astonished. Somehow he'd told the complete truth while also supporting my web of lies. Well, at least he told the truth as much as I could imagine. He did seem to have fallen from the sky. I reigned in my surprise, hoping that Ronan couldn't tell what I was feeling simply from looking at my side profile.

Ronan stared at us both, his brows drawn down over his scrutinizing green gaze. I relaxed my body in the way I usually did when I felt that Ronan was being ridiculous. His quizzicality of the situation was refreshing, yet troubling. He'd never questioned anyone like he was questioning Loki. It made me think he was jealous. Of what, I had no idea.

Ronan glared at Loki, and Loki returned the favor. The weight of the space viking's presence became heavier, until I felt like his body was wrapped around my own. It wasn't. His body was still a foot and a half away, but it still felt like he had enveloped me in a possessive, yet caring embrace.

Ronan was the first to back out of the glare contest. He sighed, running his fingers through his disheveled hair as he shook his head in defeat. Loki's nearly suffocating presence around me pulled back, as if it were being sucked back in to his slim form.

"Okay. A hang gliding accident it is," Ronan yielded. He looked at me and roughly jerked his thumb in Loki's direction. "You ready to go drop him off at a hotel?"

"Actually," I started out slowly, hoping to somehow soften my words by slowing them down, "I'm bringing Loki to my place tonight." Ronan's jaw dropped open to voice his protest, but I cut him off with a raise of my hand. "None of the motels are open right now, and the nearest open hotel is in the next town over, which is quite a drive. And at this time of night, you'd probably favor sleep over a highway."

Ronan's mouth snapped shut and twisted around painfully as he tried to come up with a flaw in my logic. He failed. And by the rate at which his wide shoulders drooped, he failed miserably.

"Fine," he surrendered, flinging one open palm upwards and letting it flop back down to his side. "Get in the car." With that, he spun around and stalked back to the driver's side of Big Bubba. He kind of reminded me of a petulant child who was told that he couldn't have his sibling's toy.

I looked up at Loki, giving him a small, apologetic smile in the hopes that he would forgive Ronan's immature behavior, and started for the car. Loki followed, keeping stride with me. It must've been an embarrassingly easy task for him, because he didn't suck in even one ragged breath like most people do when they walk with me. I smiled at the thought of six foot four Ronan breathing heavily as ran to keep up with me. I may only be five foot three, but I stretch my gait far enough when I walk that I might as well be a six foot speed-walker.

"Thank you, Alex," Loki said as we reached the car, "for all you've done for me on this night."

"The night's not over yet, sir," I said, wrapping my fingers around the door handle. I flashed a smile over my shoulder at the metal adorned man before opening the passenger side door and climbing into the cab. Loki was right behind me, pulling the door closed behind him as he scooted in next to me.

Suddenly, I was very glad that I was at least somewhat skinny. I was squished between a brick house and telephone pole in a relatively tiny truck cab. I might as well have been a bug being squished between two rocks. This was going to be a fun ride back to town.

Ronan turned over the ignition and shifted the truck into drive. As he gently pressed his foot down on the gas pedal, he draped his right arm around my shoulders in a possessive hug that made me want to whack him in the kneecap. Instead of causing serious injury to his patella, like I really wanted to do, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and lifted his arm away from my shoulder. I carefully placed his hand on the steering wheel and gave him a sideways glare.

"Both hands on the wheel, Cool Shack," I said in a warning, yet playful tone.

"You're no fun," he scoffed, repositioning his hands on the vinyl circle. He shoved his foot to the floor, and we sped across the New Mexico desert toward the newly rebuilt town of Puente Antiguo.


	4. Homeward Bound

_____Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. This is all for fun; not monetary values._

_Chapter 4: Homeward Bound_

The drive to town was a mostly quiet one. I was silent for one main reason: I was getting ready to hoof it back to town. Tension slowly worked its way into my muscles, making me stiffer than a porn star's hard on. In silent fear, I waited for Big Bubba to take a few notes from Phoenix and sputter to a stop, leaving us stranded in the middle of the New Mexico desert. So far, the Dodge was being a good boy, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't throw a temper tantrum and die in a less than glorious sputter of shaking metal parts.

It didn't help my case that Loki was becoming more and more anxious as we approached a town that had only recently been completely remade. Energy seemed to pulse off of him in cool waves as he stared out the windshield at the buildings that loomed ahead in the darkness. I glanced over at his motionless form. He looked like one of those demented kids in a candy store. The kind of kid that would wreak havoc on the candy machines just for a tiny taste of the sugary confections. It was unnerving, and only made my muscles tighten even more.

"You okay, Blue?" Ronan asked into the silence.

The sound of his voice was so unexpected that I hit the roof. Literally. I jumped, conking the top of my head on the roof of the cab with a migraine inducing crack. My hand shot up, covering the newly formed golf ball on the top of my noggin. The stream of creative curse words I spewed out would've made a veteran sailor shit himself if he'd heard them.

"Son of a dog licking gutter whore cock weasel!" I groaned. I leaned forward in a doomed attempt to run away from the sharp pain that threatened to hammer itself into my parietal lobes, resting my head on the black dashboard.

I heard Ronan stifle a laugh, and wondered if it would be rude to thwack him on the head so he could share my head pain. I decided against it. Whacking him while he was behind the wheel of a car wasn't the best idea. Besides, he had enough common courtesy to hold back the laugh. And he usually didn't possess that particular attribute when I broke out my artistic style of cursing.

"You okay, Blue?" he asked again, clearing his throat to mask his humor while simultaneously holding in a guffaw.

I took a deep breath, telling myself that the pain wasn't as bad as a broken arm or a burn. "I've had worse," I replied tightly, squeezing myself back in between Ronan and Loki.

"Why do you keep calling her Blue?" Loki asked. I rubbed the heel of my hand on the sore spot of my head and looked over at the previously mute male. He'd taken the words right out my mouth. Or out of my thought process, at least. I looked over at Ronan, waiting for an answer to the question that Loki had inadvertently stolen my from lips.

"She has blue eyes. It fits," Ronan said, shrugging his massive shoulders as much as he could within the confined space he had. He needed a bigger truck. Big Bubba Dos.

"What happened to Lex?" I asked, frowning at him.

"You hate that name, so I gave you a new one," he answered, shrugging again. If he kept doing that, he was going to bust out his window. Or rip his shirt at the seams. I was kind of hoping for the second one.

_Is there such a thing as too muscular?_ I asked myself. A mental picture sprang up behind my eyeballs. It was an image of a body builder who looked more like an orange lump of veiny Play-Doh than a man. Yes, there was such a thing as too muscular, as well as too much spray tanning. Thank the gods that Ronan wasn't that big! Loki and I would've had to ride in the truck bed.

Returning my thoughts to the conversation at hand, I said, "I'd rather be an arch nemesis than a primary color. But thanks for thinking about my feelings."

Ronan smiled and gave a small nod, keeping his eyes on the land that the headlights illuminated for him. "You're welcome. Lex Luthor it is, then."

I aimed a smiled at my lap, trying to ignore the dull throb that had taken up residence on the top of my head. I flicked my gaze over to Loki, who was back to staring out of the window. I watched him, intrigued. He hadn't said a word about my crude tirade, which was something I thought a royal entity would have at least a small comment on. Instead, he'd opted for a question about a nickname that Ronan had somehow thought would be a good idea, and now he had his tunnel vision sights set on Puente Antiquo.

The way he stared at the town made it seem like the once battered village was his only hope for greatness. In that instant, I had a million questions that I wanted to ask him. If he was really a being from another realm, then why did he come to Earth, of all places? What was he doing here? What was his plan? Why was he staring at a town he'd never seen before like it was the world's largest gold mine in the middle of a 1850's gold rush? Why, if he was so damn regal, did he not find my foul language unacceptable enough to say anything? Didn't rightful kings usually have something to say about impropriety?

Of all the things I wanted to ask him, only one sprang to the tip of my tongue: does he normally read people's minds? I didn't ask him that, of course. My brain to mouth filter was actually working for once in my 24 years of life. Hooray for me! I guess even my screwed up mind thought that the question was a uncomfortably stupid one. Or maybe it just didn't want to say it in front of Ronan. Yeah. That might explain it.

My gaze shifted away from his face. I skimmed my eyes over his slicked back, black hair, wondering what the little outward wisps of his locks felt like. They scanned over the leather collar that so frustratingly covered his pale neck. They made their way down the front of the clothes that had been molded to fit his lean frame, and I wondered just how well molded those pieces of armor were. They followed the line of the strap across his chest that I hadn't dared travel down with my hands when I had been examining his clothes. I guess my eyes figured that looking wasn't as bad as touching, and moved of their own accord to find the bump of leathery material at the apex of his legs.

_Good gods, Alex,_ I yelled at myself, _you just met the guy and you're already thinking about what's doing on in his downtown situation! Ronan is right. You need a man whore. You gotta get laid!_

I quickly lifted my head to look out of the windshield, praying to whatever deities there were that Loki and Ronan hadn't noticed my wandering eyes, and found that we were at the city limits. Freshly painted tan, green, and blue-grey buildings blurred by us, their dark shapes seemingly shying away from Big Bubba's blinding headlights. Ronan drove through the business district of the small town at top speed. We whisked by coffee shops, grocery and clothing stores, gas stations, and the mechanic shop that Ronan owned. It was hard to believe that only three years before, the town had been almost completely leveled by a metal fire monster.

Businesses slowly faded into housing developments. Houses and apartments alike flew by in a rush of darkness. There wasn't a single light on in any of the residences. It was a sure sign that everyone was nestled into their beds, dreaming about unicorns and low gas prices like normal people do. They could never dream up what I'd gone through tonight, and they'd probably commit themselves to the loony bin if they did.

Ronan slowed Big Bubba down to a crawl as he turned onto my blacked-out street. My tiny house was at the very end, tucked away between two much larger homes. It wasn't very big, but I was the only person living there, so it was perfect. It needed some renovations, but the contractors who had rebuilt the town hadn't gotten as far as my street yet. Lazy bastards. Ronan pulled up to my off-white home that was trimmed with dark blue, and parked Big Bubba on the street.

"Is this your home?" Loki asked, looking at the mediocre house like it was smeared with rotten egg.

I leaned over his body to open the door, glancing up at him with a minute smile curling the corners of my mouth. With the way he looked at my house, I thought it was possible that he _was_ from another realm where they didn't have such poverty. What I tried to not think about was how close I was to his body as I swung open the car door.

"I know it's not much to look at," I said, watching where I placed my hands around Loki's body as I pushed myself upright, "but it's a roof over my head and I can afford it on my shitty salary."

"You know Alex, you could always come work at the shop," Ronan interjected. "We could use a receptionist."

I threw him a nasty look. "Do I look like the kind of chick that'd wear a pencil skirt and fuck around with files all day?"

Ronan raised his hands next to his head in the classic "I-mean-you-no-harm" motion that saved people from being shot . "I never said you had to wear a pencil skirt. And fucking around with files might get you sent to HR. Or worse. It could give you paper cuts it nasty places." He pulled his lips tight over his teeth in a humorous grimace.

A laugh bubbled out of my throat. "That's nasty," I said, my voice vibrating with the chuckle that was slowly dying in my chest. "Is that what happened to the last girl?"

"Exactly," Ronan said. He raised his eyebrows for an added, goofy effect, happily making fun of the woman who had been recently fired. She'd been caught screwing a pencil pusher on a pile of papers. Ronan often referred to it as "geek love". I often corrected him and told him it was nerd love. He never understood the difference.

I shook my head at him, smiling as I tried to hold back the laughter that grew in my chest from the thought of a woman with cat-eye glasses and a bunch of papercuts on her ass. Once I'd killed the laughter, I looked over at Loki, hoping he didn't mind Ronan and me joking around. Apparently, he did mind, because he seemed peeved that Ronan was delaying our entrance into my house.

"Are you quite finished?" he asked. His face was impassive, but his eyes were as hard and cold as the iceberg that took out the Titanic. Staring into his steely gaze, I felt like my body was slowly becoming frostbitten, as if I was standing on the top of Mount Everest instead of sitting in a car in New Mexico. Ronan, however, seemed to remain his warm, calm self. Maybe he was protected from Loki's icy glare was because he was wearing so many jackets.

"I'm sorry, Lok. "Ronan said, shortening the pale man's name, like he did with everyone else's. "You must be pretty wiped out after your accident."

"Quite," Loki said. I could almost see the icicles hanging off of the single, seemingly innocent word.

"Well, then," I said, forcing my way into the curt conversation, "let's get you inside so you can get some sleep." I put my palm flat on Loki's upper arm and pushed, flashing Ronan an apologetic smirk over my shoulder. Gently, I nudged Loki as a hint for him to get out of the cab.

He got the hint and slid out of the seat, stepping on to the grass without so much as a whisper of moving fabric. He looked out of place, standing in my shabby yard in front of my run-down house in his elegant, custom outfit. For a moment in time, he truly seemed to be the alien he claimed he was. The hottest alien imaginable, but an alien nonetheless.

I hopped out of the car behind him with my hand already searching around in my jacket pocket for my house keys. I wrapped my hand around the open door, turning back to Ronan to bid him goodnight. My friend stared down at me with green eyes drowning in concern.

"Be careful tonight, Alex," he said, sincerity coating every simple word until it sounded like plea.

"I will be. Promise," I replied, giving him a reassuring tweak of my lips. "Thanks for saving my ass."

He flashed me mouthful of perfectly white teeth, apparently comforted by a promise that I couldn't realistically keep. "Anytime. G'night."

"G'night," I said, swinging the door closed. A thought latched hold of my brain hard enough that I jerked the door back open again so I could voice it. "Take care of my baby."

Ronan nodded at me, a handsome smirk plastered on his face. His face fell into a stoic hardness as he mocked a tight salute. "Yes ma'am."

We exchanged another round of grins and goodnights before I pulled away from Big Bubba's white frame. I swung the door shut, giving Ronan a little wave as he drove off with my car hitched to the back of his. Looking up at Loki's irritated face made me wonder why I hadn't let Ronan take him to another town. That would've been the smarter idea. Instead of being intelligent, I'd offered to let an ungrateful, crazy stranger stay at my house, _and_ I was sexually attracted to him! Leave it to me to complicate any already complicated situation with my sex drive. I gave Loki a well-mannered smile, hoping to cheer him out of his vexation, and me out of my self-deprecating thought process.

"You ready to be disgusted some more?" I joked, pulling the keys out of my pocket. They emerged from the folds of leather with a metallic tinkle that echoed over the dark yard.

"I do not believe I will ever be ready enough to enter your household," Loki said, disdainfully. So much for cheering him up with my award winning smile.

My smile fell and I narrowed my eyes at him. "Gee. Tell me how you really feel," I said, sardonically. He looked at me then. Truly looked at me, just like he had in my car. A small smile tugged at his perfect mouth.

"I apologize," he said. He bowed his body ever so slightly at the waist, sweeping his hand out to the side in a subtle, yet elegant flourish. Sarcastically, he continued, "I would be overjoyed to step foot in your lovely home."

I grinned wide enough that I thought it would split my face. The space viking understood sarcasm. I was beginning to like him. Well, I was beginning to like him despite the fact that I thought he was a nutbar and I wanted to jump his bones. He might as well have been a really hot Baby Ruth that was laced with sex appeal.

"Well, alright then," I said, adjusting the keys in my hand with a clink, "let's not dilly-dally any longer. You need to be overjoyed as soon as possible."

I gave him another smile, which he quickly, and genuinely, returned. I lead the way up the sidewalk to my ramshackle little house with Loki in tow. Occasionally, I glanced back at him to gauge his facial expressions as he surveyed the house. Man, if he despised it the darkness, he was going to loathe it in the light. Once we reached my dark blue front door, I inserted the key in the lock, wondering how much of a field day Freud would have with that analogy, and with my dirty mind. The lock clicked, signaling that I could now enter my house without breaking the door frame or pulling out my lock pick set. Happily, I twisted the knob and pushed the door open.


	5. Home Sweet Home

_____Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. This is all for fun; not monetary values._

_Chapter 5: Home Sweet Home_

"Home sweet tool shed," I joked as I stepped over the threshold.

I clicked on the lights. Their incandescent bulbs illuminated the foyer and living room. It was a simple set up. The foyer, with it's black lacquered half circle wall table, coat hooks, and antique mirror, led into the medium sized living room. My midnight blue couch, complete with silver pillows, was pushed against the right wall. Black, light blocking curtains fell over the window to the left of the couch, their silver trim brushing over the polished granite sill. On the wall opposite the couch, a thirty-two inch flat screen television sat on it's six foot tall, black entertainment center. The entertainment center also acted as my movie case, my DVD and VCR box container, my memory shelf, and part of my miniature library. I'd just purchased it, and it was well worth the money I'd spent. In the center of the room sat a black coffee table, covered with CD's, magazines, dirty dishes, and a boom box.

To the left of my combination station was the doorway to the kitchen. The cooking space was a hell of a lot smaller than I would've liked, but I really had no room to bitch. I only ever cooked for me or the neighborhood munchkins. The kitchen was painted white, like the the rest of the house, and was decorated in the strangest theme I'd ever seen a kitchen have: murderous rampage. I figured it's a place where you cut and cook meat, so why not add a little Jeffrey Dahmer flair to it?

My two-person kitchen table was dark stained particle board, and spattered with dark red splotches. The cabinets were painted to match the tiny table. The granite counter top was black, and was covered with bright red appliances: a toaster, a microwave, a coffee maker, and a butcher knife set in the shape of a human bubble. My sink was positioned under a window that looked out over the front yard. The window was covered with a white and red splatter curtain, and felt almost a touch like a cliché

Halloween decoration. The only normal items in my kitchen were the stove and the fridge. My stove was the standard black and white electric kind, and my fridge was an off-white double-door covered in tourist and geek magnets.

On the right side of the living room's entertainment center was a hall that led to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom, located in the front right of the hallway, was decorated in the same theme as the kitchen, only with an Alfred Hitchcock spin. The tiles were a shiny, clean white, like they'd been soaked in bleach for a week. The shower curtain was white and blood splattered, just like the kitchen curtain. The sink, as clean and white as the wall and floor tiles, was nestled into a black granite counter top. Hygienic trinkets were sporadically placed on the counter around the sink, and a washcloth was flung over the hook-shaped arch of a silver faucet. A mirrored medicine cabinet hung over the sink. By far, the favorite part of my bathroom was the bathmats. They were white, and turned crimson red whenever they got wet. Sometimes I'd just stand in my bathroom and slowly drip water onto the mats until they looked like a crime scene. Perhaps it wasn't Loki who was the crazy one after all.

My room was tucked into the far right corner of the house. My queen-sized bed rested in the upper right corner of the room, it's royal blue sheets awaiting my arrival for a morning of sweet dreams. The four white pillows were stacked at the head of the bed in pairs, and my onyx hued nightstand was home to a small lamp and a pile of recently read books. At the far end of the room was another window covered by a light blocking, black curtain, and to it's left was a black dresser. Random items rested on top the the dark wood, seemingly meaningless to the untrained eye. A baseball cap here, a necklace there. All of the things on the clothing filled piece of furniture was personal to me. A small, happy memory of my past.

In the right corner of the room, on the left side of the window, sat an overflowing bookshelf. From ceiling to floor, books of all kinds covered the wall until it looked like a forest of inked pages and creased spines. About three-fourths of the books I owned were shoved onto the six shelves. If someone decided to cut out the back of the shelf and shine a light through the books, the light would never see the other side of the room. There were simply too many books for anything but dust to pass through the minute crevices in between the covers. That corner was my favorite spot in the entire house. This fact became glaringly obvious if you walked into the corner and saw the spot in the rug that had been worn down to measly fibers by my butt.

The guest room was located on the left side of the house. It was, interestingly enough, decorated in emerald green and gold. Its setup was a mirror image of my room. The queen bed, adorned with an emerald green comforter and two golden pillows, was pushed into the top left corner of the room. A glittering gold curtain hung open over the window in the center of the far wall. A bare, lightly stained dresser was wedged into the right corner. A small bookshelf was crooked into the far left corner, and held the books that the entertainment center and overwhelmed case in my room couldn't. A large painting of a golden waterfall was hung between the bed and books. I'd painted it when I had still lived in Florida. It was my artistic take on a waterfall located in the Rainbow Springs State Park. Personally, I wanted to go back and repaint the scene. Unfortunately, I would never allow that to happen.

Loki walked past me, gliding his tall form to stand in the center of the living room. His eyes moved over everything, taking in every last detail possible with his frosty blue eyes. I watched him as I nestled my jacket onto its coat hook. He walked up to the entertainment center, seemingly intrigued by the random items placed on the dark wood. He grazed his fingertips over a small music box, then over an antique frame that held a photo of me and a beautiful young redhead. Even if I could have seen his face at that moment, I'm sure it would have been unreadable. After all, it had been mostly unreadable for the entire time I'd known him. Maybe I just sucked at human interaction. I was betting on my shitty social skills as being the reason why I couldn't read him, and not the fact that I'd only known him for two hours.

Once he'd had his fill of the knickknacks, he turned around to look at the rest of the living room. He stopped mid-spin as his eyes fell on something he deemed interesting. He stepped closer to my couch, maneuvering around the coffee table with his eyes glued to a painting mounted over the dark blue microfiber pillows. He was staring at my painting of the star cluster NGC 2074. It was one of my favorite photos that NASA had taken of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Dark gray, red tinged clouds spread up from the bottom of the painting. The clouds reached for a swirl of turquoise and bright green and yellow. Bright stars were smattered through the astral landscape. It was as if a dark rainbow confection had nestled itself in the heavens, and the twinkling stars were only too happy to have the colored company. He studied my painting, his eyes dancing over it as if it held the secrets to the universe and he only had a short time to figure that secret out.

"Do you like it?" I asked, moving into the room behind him. I tossed my keys onto the coffee table and hooked my thumbs through my belt loops. Loki broke his gaze away from the painting to glance over his shoulder at me. A small breath of air escaped his lips in the form of a chuckle, his thin mouth curling upward in a small smile. He reminded me of an unapologetic kid who'd been caught peeking at the Christmas presents. He turned away from me to stare at the painting again.

"Yes. It it exquisite," he said.

"Thank you," I said, taking a step closer to him. "It's nice to know that someone appreciates my artwork for once."

His spine rolled up, the new posture bringing him to his full height of taller than me. He pulled his hands behind his back, clasping one set of slender fingers around his wrist to secure the position. He turned to me, surprised doubt clear as day on his handsome face. "You made this?"

"Mhmm," I nodded. He stared at me for a second, looking as if he were wondering how in the hell I could possibly paint something as intricate as a star cluster. Nothing boosts a girl's confidence like a dude looking at her like he'd finally realized that she might not be an idiot after all. Without saying a word, he once again turned back to the painting, his hands still firmly latched behind his back. I rolled my lip under my teeth and gripped it, stepping forward to stand next to him.

"It's um...it's a star cluster. It's located in a galaxy far, far away." I explained, glancing up at him. "Kind of like Star Wars."

Loki's eyebrows furrowed and he looked down at me, thoroughly confused. "I have never known a star to participate in a war."

My eyes widened on their own and I pursed my lips to keep a laugh from rudely exploding out of my mouth. Licking my lips, I cast my eyes to the gray carpet, praying that I wouldn't offend the crazy, pop culture deprived, hot man with my insubordination of openly laughing at him.

"I do not understand what you find so amusing," Loki said. From his tone alone I could tell that I'd ticked him off. Oops! Well, you can't please all the people all the time, even if you're trying to please them. Life lesson learned.

Lifting my head, I gave him a watered down version of my "you-poor-thing" look. "Oh, hun. You need to be educated in the world of George Lucas films."

His frown deepened, his eyes increasing their cold fierceness as he glared down at me. "Who is George Lucas Films and where is this world located?"

"Hollywood, California." I stated, succinctly. Quickly, I changed the subject. Having his harsh gaze locked on me as if I were a kidnap victim with a vast knowledge of CIA intellect was not exactly how I wanted to spend my evening. Grabbing his hand in mine, I set myself on the task of taking him to where he would sleep for the night. "Let me show you to your room."

I squeezed between his body and the couch. My eyes were level with his chest, our bodies pressed together in a way that would've made a lesser woman turn redder than a ketchup smeared firetruck. Then again, a better woman wouldn't have been thinking of running her hands over his chest to pull him down for a kiss. A better woman, I was not.

Shoving the thoughts to the back of my brain, I pulled him down the hallway. Leading him by the hand to the room honestly wasn't the best idea either. He was probably smart enough to follow me without me dragging him along like he was a freakishly tall five year old. Plus, my skin felt like it was on fire when it came in contact with his hand, and that seemed wrong. I shouldn't have that kind of physical reaction to a stranger. Right? If I was going to have that kind of reaction to anyone, it should be to Ronan. I'd known him longer than I'd known any other male of the human species. Isn't that how it usually works? You're more attracted to people you've known for long periods of time? I needed to research this stuff.

"That's the bathroom," I said, pointing to the lightless lavatory. "If you want, you can take a shower. I have some clothes that you can borrow, if you'd like, so you won't be wearing dirty clothes on a clean body."

"I'd be most grateful," he said with a small, graceful nod. "Thank you."

I gave him a much less graceful nod back. He moved like a lithe ballerina in even his most finite of movements. I moved like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. "Of course," I said, flashing him a small smile.

I turned around and tugged him further down the hall, stopping in front of the closed guest room door.

"This is where you'll be sleeping for the night," I said, letting go of his hand. The fire that had so wonderfully burned my skin faded to a sharp tingle. I refrained from shaking my hand to get rid of the sensation, and used the hand to twist the doorknob instead. Discreetly wiping away a sensation wasn't as bad as openly flopping your hand around, right? Pushing open the door, I stepped inside and flipped the lightswitch skyward. "I hope you like it."

Loki took one look at the room and smirked at me. "Were you expecting me?"

_Hello. James Dean?_ I thought to myself. _Um, yeah. You're fired. We found someone hotter. Sorry 'bout your luck, kid._

It took me a second for my brain to reform words. Is this what happens when people fall in love? Do they rapidly lose their intelligence as if they were having a waking lobotomy? I mentally smacked myself, scolding the very notion of falling in love, and harshly reminding myself that it is impossible to fall in love with someone you don't know. The internal whack recalibrated my thought process to that of a person who had common sense and a lower sex drive.

"Oddly enough, no," I said with a nervous chuckle. I stepped into the room. "I just liked the color scheme."

"As do I," he said, following me into the center of the small space. His eyes wandered around, a heartfelt smile tugging at his lips.

"I can tell," I replied, crossing my arms over my stomach. I lifted one arm vertically, resting it between the valley of my breasts to press my right index finger against my lips. I watched him as he once again surveyed a room of my home. He skimmed his gaze over the emerald and gold-embroidered comforter, frowning at the simple, metal bedframe. Well, the whole heartfelt smile thing didn't last long. His eyes traveled up the wall, and once again stopped on a painting. He narrowed his eyes at the golden falls. He seemed perplexed.

"You have golden hued water on Midgard?" he asked, taking his eyes off of the painting and fixing them steadily on me.

I smiled behind my finger. Taking a step forward, I lowered my hand away from my mouth, resting it instead on the collar of my Led Zeppelin shirt. "Unfortunately not," I said with a lopsided smile. "That's just how I chose to paint it."

"May I ask why you chose to paint it such a color?" he asked. He took a small step toward me. I nodded, taking my own a small step toward the painting and away from him. I did not need to have my mind clouded again by his body being next to mine.

"When I was painting it, I thought that water is sort of like gold to the human body. Consciously, humans want gold because it means that we are rich enough to own it, and being rich makes us feel alive. Subconsciously, humans want water _because_ it keeps us alive. The feeling you get when you purchase gold or riches and the feeling you get when water slides down your dehydrated throat are pretty much the same. It's a pure, simple, soothing joy. And, how cool would it be to see a gold waterfall. I mean, seriously?"

Loki had closed the space between us as I'd been speaking, taking a spot to my left in front of the painting. He smiled down at me, his face once again conveying that he was delightfully stunned by my profound insight. Or maybe he was delightfully stunned at how I could go from being deep and thoughtful to facile and childish faster than a cheetah on case of Red Bull. Then again, that wouldn't be delightfully stunning in the least. No, that would definitely fall in the category of horrifically appalling.

"Where, precisely, are these falls located?" he asked, his smile downgrading to a smirk. In that moment, I wished that James Dean hadn't bitten the dust in a car crash. He and Loki would have one hell of a smirking contest.

"Rainbow Springs State Park in Florida," I said automatically. For the second time that night, my brain finally caught up to what Loki had said five minutes before. I needed sleep if I was going to be this slow on the draw. "What's Midgard?"

"It is the title given to your realm," he said, slipping in between me and the painting. His body was dangerously close again as he slipped by, and I froze like a frightened opossum. "There are nine realms," He continued, grabbing a book off of the shelf to my right. He took a few steps backward, reclaiming his original spot in front of my painting. The second he stood more than a foot away from me was the second the tension drained from my rigid muscles. My metaphysical body slumped. Thankfully, my physical body stayed in place.

_Snap out of it, Alex!_ I admonished myself. _You're being ridiculous! This man is a stranger, who is off-the-wall insane. You've never had this sort of problem with hot guys before, so why start now? Stop acting like a starry-eyed school girl and be the hard-ass you claim to be!_

I was right. I needed to swim my way back to the surface of reality. Yes, this man was quite possibly the most handsome male that I had ever laid my deprived eyes on. But, he was also a deranged stranger who was claiming to be royalty from another part of the universe. No one was pretty enough for _me_ to get all wishy-washy over, dammit! Especially people that made the Son of Sam seem moderately sane. In that instant, I prayed that Loki didn't like dogs, and made an early New Years resolution to stop being such a horny female.

"There is Asgard, where I come from, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Nidavellir, Svartlfheim, Hel, Muspelheim, Jotenheim, and your world, Midgard," he explained, cracking open the book to examine its pages.

"That sounds like one hell of a Scandinavian mouthful," I replied, filled with my newly repossessed snark.

"Where did you think they acquired the titles from?" Loki asked, glancing up from the copy of Grimm's Fairytales that was cradled in his long fingers.

I blinked at him, utterly confounded. Did he honestly mean what I thought he meant?

"You mean to tell me," I started, turning toward him, "that the Scandinavian people thousands of years ago got their mythological mumbo jumbo from you?"

"Technically, they obtained it from Odin," he replied. His eyes settled on the old book as he flipped a yellowed page.

"Odin. As in the Norse god?" I asked, incredulous. Why did I think it was a good idea to let this guy stay in my house again? Oh yeah. He's hot. Way to think with your invisible dick, there, Alex!

"Yes. To the people of old, he was considered a god simply because he prevented the Frost Giants from annihilating them. He brought weapons and magic that they could have never comprehended otherwise, and worshiped him as a god for something the rest of the universe already understood." He looked up from the book, locking his hard gaze on me. Blue orbs swam in a sea of pure loathing. The sheer magnitude of how deeply the emotion ran in him was enough to make me want to squirm. I didn't, though. Point for me. "Humans are fantastically idiotic. I'm not entirely sure why he saved them in the first place."

I frowned at him. He sounded like me on one of my bad days, only much more serious. He spewed stories about other worlds, basically said that he hated humans, and was incredibly rude. Not to mention the fact that he was nuttier than squirrel shit. Plus, he shifted between emotions so quickly that it was like I was looking at an octopus. And the worst part was, I'd invited him to stay in my house. Looked like I was going to be barricading my door!

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, there, professor," I said sardonically, tightening my arms over my stomach. The next words that came out of my mouth completely bypassed my brain-to-mouth filter. "But, to be honest, I actually agree with you."

_Way to be consistent, Alex! _I thought to myself. I promptly told myself to shut up. I actually listened to me for once in my life, and the voice in the back of my head stopped talking.

Loki pulled the book away from his face. His eyes were wide and his eyebrows had crawled their way up his forehead. His thin lips parted slightly. He was shocked, yet again. Nice to know I could pull of stunning a crazy man multiple times in one night.

"Do you?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Yeah," I said, bobbing my head once. Quickly, I changed the subject so I wouldn't further agree with anything else that Charles Manson Part Deux said, and so I could hightail it out of the room. "Well, I'll let you get some rest. Enjoy the books and the shower time."

I spun around on my heel, taking elongated steps toward the open door. Getting everything settled in for the night around the house and locking my bedroom door behind me sounded like a marvelous idea. Unfortunately for me, Loki's smooth baritone voice stopped my plans from advancing any further than the door jamb.

"Are these all of the books that you possess?" he asked.

I stood in the doorway with a hand on the white trimmed frame, and heaved out a sigh so big that my shoulders moved with it. I stared at the blank, white wall in front of me as he continued to talk. Not that I was fully complaining; he could read the phonebook and turn a girl into a puddle of goo.

"In Asgard, we keep a grand library of books in the palace."

My body, against my mental wishes, wheeled around at the mention of a library. It was a life goal of mine to own a huge house that held an equally huge library. I felt kind of like Belle from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. Give a girl your gigantic room of books, and she'll marry your furry, douche ass. But, I had to hand it to that French chick, she got Stockholm Syndrome for the right guy. With my luck, Loki's library was the one for the town and he was simply a homeless man who'd concocted an elaborate imaginary world to make his every day life seem better. Then again, homeless dudes didn't dress like they'd just popped out of a Tolkien novel.

I reeled my runaway thought process back into the brain boat. Loki was staring at me yet again, his face passive and his eyes sparkling with amusement. How in the hell did he manage to pull that off? Most people couldn't manage to look passive even if they'd had acting classes that were used for the sole purpose of seeming indifferent. But here this guy was, somehow being amused with his eyes and uncaring with his face. That took skill. I internally shook the thoughts from my head, replacing them instead with my usual resolve to be snarky.

"Well, it isn't for lack of trying on my part," I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. "I have more books in my room. And, lamentably, I can't fit a library in this house and still be able to live in it. After all, I'm not alien royalty, so I can't afford a palace. Enjoy your shower."

Before Loki could open his mouth to respond, I turned around and booked it out of the room.


	6. An Unwelcome Conversation

_____Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. This is all for fun; not monetary values._

_Chapter 6: An Unwelcome Conversation_

I rummaged through my dresser drawers in search of some clothes for Loki to wear. I came up with a pair of old, black sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, both of which used to belong to a much less muscular Ronan. Stacking the shirt on top of the pants, I sped past Loki's still open door to place the bundle of fabric on the bathroom counter. I was too tired to hold back the unjustified emotions the man evoked in me, and would much rather deal with him when my brain wasn't fogged by exhaustion. Who's idea was it to go out into the desert in the middle of the night, again? Oh, that's right. Mine!

I slipped my fingers into my hair, ruffling the near-black strands as my booted feet clomped into the kitchen. Opening a cabinet to grab a glass, I yawned, my mouth stretching open wide enough that I probably looked like a hippo. Maybe being a hippo would be better than being a twenty-four year old bartender that worked at a dumpy pub. I really needed a new job. Or maybe a new life. Nah. The whole "new life" thing didn't work out well the last few times I'd tried it, so what would make it work another time? I filled the glass up with tap water as I considered the pros and cons of starting anew in Ireland, and drank the cool liquid down in four big gulps.

I stuck the glass upside down in the sink strainer, resigning myself to collapsing on my bed and slipping into a mini-coma. Being dead to the world for a few sweet hours sounded marvelous. I wouldn't have to worry about my brain digging itself further into the gutter than it already was. It was already in there pretty deep, and attractive men never helped anything. I wouldn't have to worry about Loki killing me, because in Dreamland I wouldn't give two shits about dying. And, I wouldn't have to worry about my poor baby and her divorced timing belt. I wouldn't have to worry about anything except for my sleep cycles.

Deplorably enough, my luck wasn't that great. My phone rang in the pocket of my jeans. Bif Naked's "Abandonment" blasted through the small speakers. I stopped dead in my tracks in the center of my living room. My numb fingers automatically dug into my pocket to wrap around the fragile chunk of plastic and microchips. I pulled it out, my thumb clicking the answer button without asking my brain for permission first. I swallowed around a rock made up of fear and anger that had lodged itself in my throat.

"Hi, Mom," I said into the receiver. My voice sounded so muted to my own ears that it was like someone on the other side of the window was talking.

A sweet soprano voice chirped through the other side of the phone. "Hi, honey! Oh, I can't tell you how much I've missed hearing your voice!"

I could tell her how much I didn't miss hearing hers. My mother's voice was so high that it could awaken dead dogs that were buried five miles away. I was pretty sure that she got attacked by random animals on a regular basis, simply because they were sick of having to hear the high pitched frequencies that spewed form her face hole.

"How are you?" she asked, her voice sweet enough to rot my teeth.

"How did you get this number?" I asked, coolly. I blatantly ignored her question. I blatantly ignored the fear that twisted my stomach into a braid. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shoved the fear down into my toes, leaving only anger behind to govern my actions.

"That doesn't matter, dear. Your father and I miss you so much!" she replied.

"That's fascinating," I said. My tone was emotionless. Those two simple words were a barren wasteland, conveying everything she ever needed to know about my feelings for both her and my father. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, she only had enough intelligence to to comprehend how to buy beer and lay on guilt trips, and anything beyond that was rocket science.

"I wouldn't say it's fascinating, but it is sad. Alexandria, you've been gone for so long. We're just lost without our baby girl," she said. Her voice was caught somewhere between a whine and forced heartache. She was losing her manipulative touch in my absence.

While she was laying on the miniature guilt trip, I was trying to not puke the contents of my stomach onto my carpet. She insisted on using my full first name, and I loathed it. I'd dumped the girly name of Alexandria, and the forced preppy persona that went with it, at the Florida/Alabama border when I was eighteen. My mother had always wanted a prissy little girl who would wear pink skirts, get her nails done, and be the pinnacle of lady-like behavior. I'd decided that _that_ idea could get fucked up the ass with a rusty chainsaw and no lube. She'd hated it. I hadn't cared.

When I tuned back in to BitchTalk Radio, my mother said, "When are you coming home, Alexa?"

I gritted my teeth so hard that I was surprised they didn't chip under the pressure. If Alexandria was the tyrannical equivalent of Fidel Castro, then Alexa was the tyrannical equivalent of Hitler. At least Alexandria sounded regal and queen-like. Alexa was a preppy thirteen year old with a frothy pink dress and a superiority complex the size of Alaska. I swallowed the bile that had risen in my throat, turning to fiddle with the trinkets on the entertainment center in an attempt to give my mind something to think about other than how my stomach was violently lurching in my abdomen.

I dragged my right index finger over a miniature Gibson SG replica, and said "How about never? Does never work for you?"

Her frustrated huff blew through the line. "No," she said, her voice lowering the way only a vexed mother knew how, "it does not work for me."

"Too bad. 'Cause that's what's been workin' for me the past six years," I said wryly.

"Alexandria Marie, you co-"

"How did you get my number?" I asked, cutting off her irritatingly squeaky voice.

"I told you. It isn't important," she quickly replied. It was important, and she damn well knew it. When I'd hightailed it out of Florida, I'd told only three people how to contact me. These people were only allowed to call me if my parents were called home to be with their maker. A maker who went by the name of Satan the Dickbag. The only reason any of those three people would ever give over my information to my parents was if my parents had kidnapped and tortured them for the entire six years that I was gone. I'd told those three friends exactly how I would brutally destroy their very souls if they ever relinquished my information over to the enemy. Looked like I was going to have to learn to like prison orange.

I opened my mouth to ask her again. My dad's furious voice in the background forced my question out of existence.

"Tell her dumb ass to git home right fuckin' now, or I'm gon' kill 'er!" he growled in his thick, Southern drawl.

"Because _that's_ gonna make me want to hop on the next plane to Sunshine State!" I said sarcastically, a bitter grin pulling my lips against my teeth.

"He means well, honey. We both do. You know that," my mom said, turning her Charm Dial up to a thousand and a half.

"I did not know that," I said, moving away from my entertainment center. My shark grin faded as I paced around the living room. I kept my eyes on the floor so I didn't bump my shin into the coffee table. "When did either of you start meaning well? Last year? The year before?"

"We've always meant well. Ever since you were a little girl, we've only wanted the best for you," she said. Her voice sounded cottony, like someone had shoved a pillow up each of her nostrils. She had turned on the crocodile tears. I really was going to puke.

"And, let me guess. The 'best for me' was beating me into submission? No, wait! The best for me must've been when Dad threw me into a wall and wailed on me until you were forced to take me to the emergency room," I said, dryly. My free hand absently rubbed itself over my ribcage. Once upon a time, my dad had physically assaulted me to the point that the doctors thought it was a miracle that I was even alive. My right lung had been punctured, seven ribs broken, both of my legs broken, my skull had been fractured, and my left arm had been broken and fractured in two different places. When the doctors asked what had happened, my father had claimed that a group of girls had attacked me in the sideyard of our house. In reality, he'd snapped at me because I'd told him that Freddie Mercury was better than Frank Sinatra.

"You know better than to make him mad, sweetie. Sometimes, I honestly think you like making him mad," my mother chided, her voice as sweet as fresh cotton candy. Any hint of sadness had been effectively replaced with patronization.

"Yeah. Because nothing says 'fun' like intentionally provoking your psycho father into using your spine as an ashtray," I replied sardonically. A bitter smile curved my lips up once again.

"You were a wayward child. You never did anything we asked of you," she huffed into the phone. "We had to force you into line somehow." She was damn lucky I couldn't reach through the phone and stab her in the eye with a fork.

"Oooh, no, no, no,"I said, wiggling a finger in the air like she could see me. "I did everything you asked and more. You got pissed because I had opinions other than yours, and you couldn't handle that I was smarter than you. So, you and dad did exactly what shitty fuckin' parents do, and kicked my ass when I didn't agree with your idiocy."

"Alexandria Marie O'Connor! Do not use that kind of language!" she shouted. Her tone was one of motherly scolding. That was one, of many things, that she had no right to do to me.

"Dad uses those same words on a minute-by-minute basis _and_ said he'd kill me, yet you tell _me_ not to use a few cuss words? You are really fucked in the head. You know that, Ma?"

"How dare you?!" she screeched. I resisted the urge to pull the phone away from my ear and dump it in a sink full of water. Maybe that would make her voice more tolerable. Probably not, though. "How can you say those things to me?!"

"I dare because you're a stupid, hypocritical bitch and I hate you," I replied, bluntly.

Her voice rose about three octaves in an eardrum-rupturing, enraged panic. I was pretty sure that was what dolphins sounded like when they were being stabbed by hot pokers. It skated along my nerves, pooling in my fingers and toes in a fiery tingle that demanded physical action. I wiggled the appendages, trying to tune out her angry babbling before I did something I'd regret. Like hopping on a plane to Florida to silence her incessant squawking forever.

"How dare you say such a thing to me! I am your mother! I deserve more respect than that, you little-"

"You aren't my mother," I said calmly. I was surprised at how smooth my voice was, despite the fact that anger bubbles were bursting my chest. My mother's trip to her high and mighty throne came to an abrupt halt.

"Y-yes, I am," she stuttered. I'd managed to take the wind out of her narrow-minded sails for once. Good.

"No, you're not. You are an incubator. You carried me for nine months and spat me out, and that is where your mothering ended. Grandma and Grandpa took care of me more than you or dad ever did. The only reason they couldn't get custody of me is because they both died in a car crash before they could call Child Protective Services on your retarded ass. Grandma and Grandpa knew that you weren't fit to raise me. You have such a horrible case of Stockholm syndrome that you think the sperm donor is King Midas, when really he's King Kong. Newsflash, bitch. Everything he touches doesn't turn to gold. It gets destroyed. Like your sanity, for example. That shit crumbled the first time he hit you."

"Shut up!" she yelled. I could almost picture her pale face turning bright red with anger, her full lips pulling back against nicotine-stained teeth, tears pooling in her brown eyes, and a shaky hand pushing back a shock of auburn hair. I grinned, relishing in the thought that she couldn't backhand me this time. For once in her measly life, she had to listen to me.

"You want to know when I am coming home, Mom?" I asked, pausing for a split second to hear her ragged breathing. "When both you and Dad are both dead and buried, that's when. Only when I am able to do the Cha Cha fucking Slide on your god damn graves is when I will ever return to that abysmal state. Don't ever contact me again, or I'll make sure I can act out my fantasy sooner rather than later."

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stabbed my thumb into the red phone icon on the keypad. My entire body thrummed with a deep-seated rage. Bubbles of pure hatred burst in my chest, sending ice water through my veins. Tendrils of blue-white malice wound themselves around the fibers of my muscles, demanding violent action to be taken against everything I touched. Loathing seeped out from the very center of my being to wrap around me in a cold, comforting embrace. It beckoned to me, tried to pull me down into the dark pit of fury that was seated in the middle of my broken soul.

The phone in my hand became like a block of lead: heavy and useless. My fingers turned it over in my palm, trying to decide what to do with the blue box of electronics. My anger couldn't permeate the hard plastic cover. My pain had no use for the device. My body decided to ferociously expel it from my grasp. I whirled around, hurling the the cell phone at the wall near the hallway like I was a major league pitcher trying to break a world speed record. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, slowing the world down with crystalline vision. I stared at the carpet, time moving as if it were trying to free itself from a clear molasses, and waited for the crack to reverberate around the room as the phone shattered into a million tiny pieces of circuit boards and splintered plastic. The crack never came. I raised my head to find Loki standing tall in the hallway entrance. Time snapped back to it's normal pace, leaving my head reeling from both the sudden drop in adrenaline and the man standing before me.

The gray shirt hugged his lean muscles perfectly, making my mood almost instantly lighten. The black sweatpants were slung low on his thin hips. His black hair was damp, his face was confused, and his long fingers were wrapped around my intact phone. His right arm was still extended out across the wall, where he'd apparently caught the device in midair. He pulled the conveyor of my problems closer to his face, examining it closely before flicking blue eyes up to me.

"You have quite an arm," he said, lowering the phone to his side.

He took a step toward me and my mouth started watering like my saliva glands had a direct line to Niagara Falls. For a split second in time, I completely forgot about my sadistic parents and my abuse-filled childhood. My brain locked on to studying Loki's body, wonderfully pushing the conversation with my mother to the back of my mind. Unlike Ronan, who piled on the bulk like a linebacker, Loki was covered in trim, lean muscle. He was thin, but by no means could he be considered frail. He was basically an Olympian swimmer without the pool or Olympian status.

He took another step toward me, and all of my old problems slammed back to the forefront of my brain, carrying a few new predicaments with them. A few locks of dark hair had broken out of my ponytail as I'd flung the phone at the wall. I smoothed them back with a hand that was still twitching to make holes in the walls.

Forcing my best fake smile onto my face, I said, "And you're a good catch. Whatever you do, Loki, don't get a phone. They bring out the Randy Johnson in everyone."

He frowned at me, and I couldn't stop a genuine smile from curling my lips up. "He's a baseball pitcher. A damn good one, too."

"Does everyone on Earth idolize him in the same way that you do?" he asked, jiggling the phone once in his hand. He stood in front of me now, the phone suspended in the air in front of his abdomen. He stared down at me with a strange mixture of confusion, admiration, and loathing. The man obviously had no idea on how to pick one emotion and run with it.

"No," I said, slipping the phone out of his fingers. I raked my hand through my hair again and walked around my coffee table to plop down on my couch. The fluffed up cushions caught me without so much as a squeak of springs. I loved that couch. "Not unless they are smart enough to put the phone down before they Hulk smash it."

Loki's lips pulled away from his teeth in a sneer so miniscule that I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been staring at his mouth. A nanosecond later, his face was back to it's previous confusing jumble of feelings. Apparently, he didn't like the Hulk. Maybe he was more of an Iron Man lover. Or, he was the typical male and was in love with the Black Widow. That was the name of the female in the Avengers group, right?

Loki strolled around my coffee table to take a seat next to me on the midnight blue sofa. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together, glancing around his shoulder to look at me. I ignored the eyes that were trying to burrow into my brain in an attempt to steal my private thoughts. I set my phone on the coffee table in the hopes that I wouldn't flip the table in a blind rage within the next few minutes. I wasn't planning on flipping the table. I was actually planning on taking off my combat boots, but sometimes my plans didn't always work out the way I wanted them to. I leaned over to pull up my left pant leg, trying to mentally shake Loki's eyes off of my left temple.

"Why did you not put the phone down?" he asked.

"Because I'm not smart enough," I replied, untying the laces of my boot.

"And are you the only one stupid enough to threaten the voices on the other side of the phone?" he asked.

"Bitch, please," I scoffed, wrinkling my nose. I pulled off my boot and looked at him. He looked insulted that I'd called him a bitch. I was almost tempted to call him a bitch again, just to see what his handsome face would distort into, but decided against it. He'd agreed to not kill me in my sleep, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't change his mind. "Everyone makes a threat over the phone at some point in their life. Very few actually mean it, though."

He shook off the hurt feelings, settling on what I was telling him rather than what I had called him. "I suppose that means that you meant your threat?" he asked.

"Damn skippy, bitchcakes," I said, rolling up my right pant leg. I mentally winced. What was is with me insisting on calling him a bitch?

"Bitchcakes?" he asked, his voice taught with vexation. His accent made the word much sexier than I ever could have, even though he was obviously peeved at my poor choice in syllables.

I looked up from the task of tugging at the second set of bootlaces to flash him a nervously apologetic smile. "Delicious and nutritious," I joked.

"I highly doubt it," he frowned. My smile faded. I looked down at my boots, quickly pulling the laces loose.

"Yeah, well, what do you know?" I mumbled.

Loki shot up, and I almost threw a boot at him. I guess I knew which part of my "fight or flight" response was working tonight. Loki looked furious. His eyebrows were drawn down over blue orbs, which flashed promises of excruciating torment for my insubordination. His lips parted to unleash a rant of his collective knowledge. Maybe he didn't understand sarcasm after all.

"I know far more than you could ever hope to imagine, you dull mortal! I have seen things that you could never imagine, been to places that you do not know exist! I have held raw power in my hands! I am a g-"

"Jesus, Mary, and Jehosephine!" I shouted, shoving myself off of the couch. How in the world could what I said possibly send him into this incredibly unjustified tirade? How in the hell could one person be so full of themselves?

I hobbled over to him, my single combat boot making me walk like a peg-legged pirate. I probably didn't look all that intimidating to him in that instant, but I really didn't care. He had flipped a switch that he did not want in the ON position.

"Calm your tall ass down! I don't give a shit what you've seen. You ever yell at me like that again and you'll be seeing the back of a coroner's van. I'm letting you stay here out of the goodness of my _mortal_ heart. Push me and I'll toss you out into the street so fast that your pretty little head will pop right off your shoulders." I jabbed a finger into his hard chest, shoving him back half an inch. I counted his thoroughly stunned expression, and his meager stumble, as a small victory.

My breathing was shallow, and my throat felt tight. My eyes weren't burning like there was lava in my tear ducts, which meant that I wasn't crying. Good. I hadn't cried since I'd left Florida, and even those had been tears of joy. I'd hate to have my anti-cry winning streak come to an end. I plopped back down on the couch, dragging my fingers through my hair again. I yanked off my boot, letting it slip from my fingers to drop to the floor with a muffled thud.

I did not need this stranger losing his shit when I was already about to lose mine. I didn't need my mother contacting me. I didn't need my past to roll over me like it was a tank and I was a worm. I didn't need the complication of deep emotions and soul shattering pain. I didn't need my new life to be completely ruined by my old life.

My throat tightened again, this time in an attempt to hold back tears. It felt like someone was stabbing a knife into my wind pipe. Pressure built in my tear ducts, begging for release. I could almost hear the rusted pipes calling out to my brain. They wanted to let go of six years of accumulated salt water, agony, and anger. I wouldn't let that happen. I always heard people say that crying was a sign of strength. I'd always felt it was a sign of weakness. It was something people could use against you time and time again. Like my parents had.

Out of my surprisingly clear peripheral vision, I saw Loki sink back down onto the sofa. "I apologize," he said, softly. "You have been very kind to me. Being cruel is no way to repay your generosity."

"You're lucky I didn't punch you in the nose," I said, staring at the books on my entertainment center. "But, I accept your apology."

Quite suddenly, my realized that my head was burning as if someone had wrapped it in a hot towel. I glanced over at Loki to find him staring intently at me.

"What?" I asked. I frowned and leaned away from him a little.

"What is an ashtray?" he asked. My body went painfully rigid. He'd been listening to my horrifically personal conversation with my mother. Or, I had been really loud. My lips were suddenly very dry. I licked them. It didn't help.

"It's uh...it's what people snuff out their cigarettes in. See, cigarettes are basically tobacco leaves wrapped in paper in the shape of a cylinder. People use fire to burn the leaves so they can smoke the cigarettes, and they use an ashtray to snub out the burning leaves." I explained in way more detail than I had intended to, but he had only seem more confused when I'd talked about snuffing out cigs. Now, though, he gave a tiny nod of understanding.

"Your father, did he not burn your skin when he used your spine as an ashtray?" he asked. It was a seemingly innocent question, but it was still one I wasn't willing to answer. Especially when it was asked by a stranger, and I hadn't even told my best friend about my past Floridian life.

I scooped up my boots and stood up, trying my best to be polite as I nodded to the handsome jerk sitting on my couch. "Goodnight, Loki." I turned, making my way toward my room. Loki's voice called after me. I stopped in front of the hallway entrance with my back facing my living room and it's sole occupant.

"I did not mean to offend you, but I did hear the conversation rather clearly. I simply want-"

"If you heard the conversation clearly then you can draw your own conclusions as to what was spoken about. I'm not going to talk about it with you, or anyone else. I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well, whenever sleep ends up finding you." I padded my way to the door of my room, calling one last command down the darkened hallway before I slipped into my sanctuary. "Don't burn my house down while I'm sleeping."


	7. Evil Light of Day

_Chapter 7: Evil Light of Day_

I woke up the next morning to tomato red filling my vision. I cracked open an eyelid, only to be greeted by a blinding ray of sunshine. Groaning like a zombie in a 1960's horror flick, I shoved my face into my pillow and cursed the architect that had thought it was a good idea to put a bedroom on the east side of a house. I did not want to be awake yet. I wanted to be in the world of make-believe, where life was all rainbow-farting unicorns and butterflies made of glitter. Being awake meant I had to deal with the reality of asinine humans and appalling memories. It also meant that I had to deal with Loki.

I really,_ really_ wished he hadn't heard my conversation with my mother. It was bad enough that my old life had followed me to my new home, but it was so much worse to have a stranger know about my deplorable childhood. Ronan didn't even know, and he was my best human friend. Hell, _I_ didn't even want to know about it! It's why I left in the first place; so I could push my shitty past life to the back of my head and never have to think about it again. And now, Loki knew.

I wondered if a lobotomy would make him forget that he'd heard anything. I quickly came to the conclusion that it wouldn't do anything but make him even more crazy than he already was. Besides, lobotomies just made people not feel as in touch with their emotions, right? Come to think of it, I might actually need a lobotomy. Not feeling anything sounded way better than feeling like I wanted to stab someone in the neck with a titanium spork. Or crying. I loathed the act of crying.

My mind skewed off into twenty different directions at once, taking every possibly avenue for overthinking that it could. Thoughts about my family, about Ronan, about Loki, about Phoenix, and about my current and past lives all mixed themselves together until it was like I was looking at a tornado of memories. My brain was so active that I could actually see said tornado when I blinked. That meant that I was either already awake enough to not need coffee, or that I was so tired that I'd lost all control over my thought processes. Either way, I needed java.

If I could only will my body to move from the comfort of my blankets, I would go make caffeinated goodness. I lay there, my face in shoved into my pillow, contemplating if I should try getting up and making coffee, or if I should just give up and go back to sleep. The mental twister behind my eyelids and the evil ball of fire in the sky were going to make it damn near impossible for me to slip into the dreamscape again. I wished I could will myself to move. Then, like the strangest genie in human history, my bladder granted my wish. I could almost hear the bundle of muscle saying "You want to move? I'll make you move!"

I was both grateful and annoyed at the ball located behind my pubic bone. It gave me the incentive to move my lazy ass out of bed. But, it also made me move my lazy ass out of bed. I still wanted to collapse back into a mini-coma, but necessary bodily functions kept me from being able to do so. The phrase "be careful what you wish for" sprung to the forefront of my mind. Stupid wish granting bladder genies just _had_ to make that phrase relevant in my life.

With one more tired groan, I fell out of my bed. Literally. I rolled to the side and the floor rushed up to greet me in an overenthusiastic hug. I turned my face just in time to not break my nose as I connected with barely cushioned concrete. Any hope of it being a good morning promptly shriveled up and died on my steel gray carpet. I lay there, trying to figure out why my feet hadn't kept me from faceplanting. I dragged my face across the rough fibers of the rug so I could chastise my legs for not doing their job, and found them tangled in royal blue sheets.

_Oh,_ I thought to myself,_ that's why my legs didn't save the morning. They were too wrapped up in something else._

I almost smacked myself for my own crappy pun. Instead, I decided to just go pee. I could smack myself later. Placing my hands on either side of my chest, I shoved myself up in a pushup that would make any drill sergeant proud, and violently kicked off the sheets. I got my feet under my body and let them carry me to the end of my bed. I scooped up a gray pair of sweatpants that I'd flung at the foot of the bed the night before, slipping the soft cotton fabric over my ghostly legs before I made my way to the bedroom door.

Usually, I slept in a tank top and underwear, and would walk around my house in just that in the mornings. But, I currently had a male guest, who I really didn't think would want to see Casper legs first thing after he woke up. I mean, a woman in nothing but black panties and a red tank top would be attractive to any heterosexual male, but it probably took away some of the sex appeal if she was almost translucent in her paleness. If I stood in the sun, I could blind people with my whiteness. It was a problem. A bigger problem was that I literally could not tan. I was stuck being Frosty for the rest of my life.

I quietly opened my bedroom door, looking around to make sure Loki wasn't in the hallway or the living room beyond. He wasn't. His door wasn't even open. So, unless he was in the kitchen being as quiet as empty air, then I highly doubted he was awake. I let out a relieved sigh as I stepped into the hallway. I padded my way down to the open bathroom door, trying my damndest to not sway on my feet as I walked. The longer I was awake, the more I knew that coffee consumption was required.

By the time I closed the door to the bathroom behind me, I had to pee like a Puerto Rican race horse. I had no idea what made Puerto Rican race horses have to piss more than any other race horse, but that was the analogy my tired mind was going with. I did my business and washed my hands, glancing at myself in the mirror as I let water rinse away soap residue.

My midback-length hair was a tangled ball of fuzz, as it usually was in the morning. My icy blue eyes were bright underneath the smudges of dark brown hair that swept across my delicate brow bone. My lashes were lowered over my eyes, making me look like an exhausted seductress. My cheeks were back to their normal color: milky white with a gentle touch of pink. My lips were pursed thin from the concentration I used to wash my hands. Ronan said that I always had an air of determination in everything I did. I never realized how right he was until just then. Who in the world concentrates so hard on the simple task of sanitizing themselves? Apparently, I did.

I turned away from the mirror, finding that my hands were clean and sans soap. I quickly dried them off on a towel. My thoughts turned toward the kitchen and the most wonderful machine ever invented. Well, it wasn't better than Phoenix, but it was a close second. I wondered why I'd never named my second favorite device in existence. Probably because I only named cars. Yeah, that was more than likely the reason why I'd never before thought to name my second saving grace.

I opened the bathroom door and staggered my way into the kitchen. The second greatest machine ever invented sat on the counter, awaiting coffee grounds and water. I happily obliged its unspoken request, popping in a coffee filter and some grounds. Taking the pot out of its resting spot, I filled it with enough water for four cups of coffee, and poured the liquid into the machine. I set the glass pot in its original place and pressed the brew button. In a few long minutes, I would have liquid energy.

I opened the cabinet above the red machine of deliciousness and pulled out two mugs. My mug was white, with a hilarious black font printed across it: "What do we want? COFFEE! When do we want it? I will fucking cut you!" It perfectly expressed how I generally felt every single morning of my adult life. It was one of my favorites.

The other mug I pulled out was another one of my favorites. It had a panel from Gary Larson's The Far Side comic. The strip was of a woman reprimanding her cat for clawing the furniture, and the cat not hearing a word that the woman had said. It had belonged to my grandfather. He'd adored Gary Larson. We would often flip through the books and just laugh at the strips together. He usually had to explain the strips because I was only six or so, but it was a wonderful bonding experience.

I stared at the mug for a few heartbeats. It didn't take me long to decide that I really didn't want someone I'd just met drinking out of something so special to me. If Loki could morph into my Grandfather, or perhaps bring him back shiny and new, then Loki could maybe drink from the Larson mug. But, since he'd never be able to do that, he'd never have the privilege. Putting the mug back in the cabinet, I pulled out a much less meaningful drinking device.

It was yet another awesome mug. It was white, with "brass" knuckles for a handle and with painted blood splattered across the ceramic. It went hand in hand with my homicidal mug. Hell, both mugs went with my kitchen's theme. After all, there's nothing like assault and threats of murder to make a morning cup of joe amazing. I was beginning to think that I needed professional help. What kind of person has a murder kitchen?

I pushed away the thoughts of therapy, and set the mugs on the counter so they could silently await scalding brown liquid while I made breakfast. As quietly as I possibly could, I pulled a pan out of one of the floor level cabinets. Unfortunately, I'm not Dr. Suave, so the pan clanged around _way_ more than I intended for it to. I scrunched my face up in a cringe, hoping that the loud metal-on-metal contact wouldn't wake up Loki. I stood motionless for a few seconds, waiting to hear the bedroom door creak open, or at least an angry bellow demanding silence. The house stayed silent. I let out a sigh of relief and put the pan on the stove.

The last thing on my to-do list was to wake up my eavesdropping guest. Actually, the last thing on my to-do list was to talk about last night, or anything personal, for that matter, with my eavesdropping guest. Granted, I can be very loud when I'm angry, so he might've not been eavesdropping at all. I might've just served up my past to him on a shiny silver platter and told him to not open his mouth about what he'd heard. That sounded like something I'd hate myself for doing.

I tapped the cabinet closed with foot as I walked past it to the refrigerator. I opened the door to the magnet-studded icebox and glanced around at the shelves inside. I found a few things that I could use to make a delicious breakfast; bacon, eggs, premixed pancake batter, and a few cups of yogurt. I'd bought the pancake batter the day before in the hopes that I would gather enough incentive to actually make them. And while blueberry yogurt was delicious, I highly doubted that Loki would find it sufficient enough to meet his food needs. It didn't even meet my food needs most days. Well, pleasing my first ever house guest seemed to be enough of an incentive for me to make pancakes.

I grabbed the bottle of mix, the package of bacon, and the carton of eggs. Closing the door with my foot like I'd done with the cabinet, I carefully placed all of the items on the counter so I could break out another pan. I cracked open the cabinet door again, only to stop and think about what would happen if I tried to wiggle out another pan.

There was a good chance that there would a lot more clanging than I wanted, and that said clanging might wake up Loki. I did not want to wake him up. I did, however, want to make him pancakes. Why I wanted to make him pancakes, I had no idea. I didn't want to talk to him about my past, but by golly, I was gonna make the man some flapjacks and make him happy while doing it! If it had just been me that morning, I more than likely would've shoveled yogurt into my mouth before draining three cups of coffee. Yet, for some reason I was being Holly Homemaker and really wanted to make some pancakes.

If Ronan were there, he'd ask me if I'd finally become a woman. I'd promptly tell him that if cooking made a person a woman, then he had a vagina fifty times over. That man might as well be a chef, for how well he cooked. I was honestly surprised that he wasn't a blob of fat and grease. I had a theory that he never ate his own cooking. He probably munched on tasteless rice cakes while others praised his culinary abilities.

I shook my head of all thoughts. My mind was a runaway train this morning, and I was pretty damn sure the sleeping man in my spare room was the conductor. He wasn't the engineer, but he was on the damn crazy train, and that was enough. I glared at the open cupboard, shook my head again, and decided to screw it. He was going to have to wake up at some point. It might as well be now.

I stooped down and grabbed another pan, carefully shimmying it out of a pile of pots. They, of course, clanked together like someone was banging a steel bar against organ pipes, but I was beyond caring. I didn't hear any aggravated shouting or the slamming of a door handle against drywall, so I figured that was a good sign that Thunder-man hadn't been roused from his beauty slumber. I clicked on two of the metal spirals on the stove and placed a pan over each burner. I picked up the bottle of pancake mix and shook it vigorously. I felt like I was the world's worst maraca player, but it got the job of mixing the mix done rather quickly.

I squirted three circles into the pan on the right side of the stove. Setting the bottle down on the counter, I opened the carton of eggs. I picked up two of the white ovals and cracked them against the counter. As I let the yolks slip out of the shells, I couldn't help but think about a line from a movie that stated that eggs were a byproduct of a hen's menstrual cycle. Bacon and hen period lumps just didn't sound nearly as tasty as bacon and eggs. Thank you Ten Inch Hero, for ruining my egg eating experience.

With my appetite nearly ruined by a movie line, I grabbed a metal spatula and started flipping. The eggs were done in less than a minute, giving me plenty of time to grab several plates from the cupboard. I shoved the spatula under the white fluffs and slipped them onto a dark red plate. I repeated the process with two more eggs before flipping the pancakes and starting on the bacon.

Keeping my eyes on the empty pan on the stove, I reached for the package of meat strips. Only, my hand didn't touch plastic shrink wrap. It touched something that felt suspiciously furry and arachnid in nature. I let out a loud, incredibly girly squeal as I grabbed the empty pan off of the stove and thwacked the large spider on the counter. I stared for a second at the black granite, my chest heaving in an attempt to draw in enough air to calm my heart rate down. My brain whirred like a computer fan, trying to make some kind of sense out of what it saw. Or, what it didn't see. There was no squished tarantula on my counter; there was only a flattened package of bacon.

I blinked a few times, trying to make sense of my two conflicting senses. I knew that I'd touched something that had eight legs and fine hairs, but my eyes were telling my that my sense of touch was as retarded as Snooki. I squinted, almost trying to will the bacon to become spider guts just so I wouldn't feel like I was going totally bonkers. An indistinct noise sounded behind me. I, in my already panicked state, let out a small squeak as I whirled around to bash whatever was behind me in the face with a frying pan.


	8. Breakfast with a King

_Chapter 8: Breakfast with a King_

I had to hand it to myself; my momentum was astounding. My kitchen whizzed by my eyes in a blur. Both my eyes and my cooking-utensil-turned-deadly-weapon came to an abrupt halt. There, in the middle of my kitchen, with a teflon coated pan an inch away from his nose, stood Loki. His hair was slicked back in messy waves, and his blue eyes were as wide as the plates I had on the counter. The gray shirt and black sweatpants still looked just as breathtaking on him then as they had the night before. His hand was wrapped around the handle of the pan, keeping it from colliding with his sculpted features while also not burning the hell out of his hand. It took a moment for my still static-y brain to register that he wasn't holding the pan handle; his long fingers were wrapped around my hand. I was completely unable to feel anything but the blood rushing through my veins. It was like a bunch of NASCAR drivers were holding a race within my vascular system.

He tore his eyes away from the scoured bottom of the pan and settled on me. His eyes were filled with amused remorse as he stepped around my extended arm. His hand didn't leave mine until he was well out of the trajectory of the makeshift weapon. I didn't think I could move my arm fast enough to hit him again, anyway. Adrenaline tends to give people the physical stamina to do things they otherwise would have never been able to accomplish.

"I apologize," he said softly. "I did not mean to startle you."

"It's uh..." I licked my suddenly dry lips, lowering the pan down to my side, "it's okay. You didn't."

One of Loki's eyebrows quirked up on his pale forehead. "I didn't?" he asked, sounding just as amused as he'd looked before. The newest addition to his facial emotions repertoire was confusion.

"No. Yes," I said. I let out a sigh. Trying to figure out a way to rationally explain exactly what had just happened in my kitchen that had made me almost bean him in the schnoz with flattened metal wasn't going to be an easy task. I turned away from him to set the pan back on the hot stove, and reached for the non-furry package of smooshed bacon. "I was startled before you snuck up on me."

"And why were you already startled? Did this spring out at you?"

I turned to see what he was talking about. In his hand was my discarded spatula, which had no doubt landed on the floor during my girly freak-out session. He skimmed his eyes over the metal, then slipped them over my face as a small smirk twisted his mouth up. He was mocking me now. Usually, I could handle people mocking me, seeing as I'm a pretty laid back person. I'll be the first one to say something degrading about myself. But, I had not yet had my coffee and I'd almost had a heart attack. Being able to deal with mockery was not in my vast system of abilities at that point.

"No," I huffed with a moue, grabbing the spatula from his hand. My fingers brushed his, and unlike when he'd had his pale fingers wrapped around mine a minute earlier, my skin tingled with pinpricks of tingly heat. It felt like someone had stuck pins in a freezer for a month and had then immediately stabbed them into my skin. The fact that the needles felt good made me think I was slowly becoming a masochist, and that I should make an appointment with a therapist _tout de sweet_. I shuffled over to the sink so I could wash off both my hand and the spatula. I hoped the water would rinse away the incredibly odd sensation that danced over my skin, as well as get the germs off of the utensil.

"I could've sworn I touched a spider," I continued, flipping off the water flow. I grabbed a handtowel to dry off the spatula with. Letting the cloth absorb the water droplets, I turned to face Loki and my cooking. Loki looked like he was desperately trying to not laugh at me. I wanted to hit him with the frying pan for real, this time. I shot him one of my best glares. I was really good at those when I hadn't had coffee yet. Loki's smile didn't falter even a smidgen under my glare. The wind rushed out of my sails faster than George Carlin could say Jack Robinson. One of three was was happening: I was losing my touch, my glare wasn't heartfelt, or Loki had been at the receiving end of so many evil eyes that he was immune to them now.

Instead of breaking his nose or throwing him a more earnest stink eye, I returned my attention to the stove. I flipped the finished pancakes onto one of the plates on the counter and squeezed another batch out of the bottle. I reached for the bacon for a third time, staring at the plastic wrapping like it was going to sprout furry legs and pump me full of venom. It didn't, and I let out a little inward sigh. It may be squished bacon, but it was still bacon and not a thing of my nightmares. I ripped open the package, placing several slimy pieces of meat strips into the replaced pan.

Loki cleared his throat enough to gain my attention. I turned my head to glance at him. One arm was wrapped around the small of his back. The knuckles of a loose fist were touched to his thin lips. His head was ducked down until his chin almost met his chest, and his sparkling eyes were glued on me. For all the world, he looked like the strangest combination of a five-year-old boy and dashing gentleman that I'd ever seen. He was so damned cute that I almost wanted to pat his head and tell him it was okay. I found that though to be an odd one, especially after I'd just wanted to break his face. I needed to learn consistency, and I needed to learn it fast. I didn't reach out and pat him on the head, though. Especially not after he opened his mouth.

"I cannot help but notice that there are not any spiders in here," he said, still sounding way too happy about my admission of lunacy.

My shoulders dropped and I let the spatula fall against my thigh. My eyebrows shot up on my forehead, and I replied with as much wry sarcasm as humanly possible, "Thank you, Captain Obvious. I had no idea."

His eyebrows furrowed for a moment, then raised up on his lovely forehead at an upward slant. He stared at me like I was being a hilariously difficult child. I glared at him like I wanted to punch him in the throat. Without taking my menacing gaze off of him, I shoved the spatula under a pancake and flipped the fluffy confection. The action was, apparently, funny as hell, because Loki started laughing. My glare was crushed under the sheer shock of hearing such a beautiful sound come from his lips. His chuckle was contagious. A smile involuntarily tweaked the corners of my mouth up.

"You're not supposed to laugh at my glare," I said, humor sneaking its way into my words. "It defeats the purpose." I flipped the rest of the pancakes while watching him out of the corner of my eye.

"I'm-"

"You're not sorry, so don't even try," I cut him off, wiggling the spatula at him. I gave him a quick smile before turning away to put a paper towel on the only empty plate. I slipped the spatula under the crispy bacon, lifting it on to the towel-lined plate so the grease could get sucked off of the meat candy before we ate it.

While flipping the last three pancakes onto their assigned plate, I asked, "Do you want some coffee?"

"Coffee?" Loki inquired. He sounded confused, like he had no idea what the delicious drink was. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. Even in my peripheral vision, the poor man looked baffled as all get out. I gave him the full weight of my gaze, and almost squeaked at how cute he looked. Yes, he was in incredibly sexy, handsome, masculine man, but the way his head was cocked to the side ever so slightly and the way his eyes became wide and innocent, he was friggin' adorable. He reminded me of a puzzled puppy. I wanted to give him a cookie and chew toy and snuggle him. Yep. Therpaist. I needed one.

I couldn't help the stupid smile that spread across my face. Last night he'd been a total jerk. This morning he was being both a jerk and so cute that I wanted to squish his thin cheeks in my palms. I shook my head, trying to wipe the thoughts and the smile away from my facial area. It was pretty sure that any manly man would loathe the idea of a woman wanting to smush their rugged faces while making baby noises. Maybe Loki could join me in seeing a therapist. It seemed that he needed one, too. Seriously, people who switched emotions like they were changing lanes on a highway needed some form of metal help.

"Yes, coffee," I said, one again shoving a slew of thoughts to the back of my mind. I spun around on my heel to pick up the brass knuckles mug. "You sound like you've never heard of coffee."

"Because I have not," he replied. His voice was closer than it had been before. A quick glance over my shoulder proved to me that at least my sense of hearing was working well. He was standing only a few feet behind me now, where as he had been standing at the other side of the kitchen before. What little was left of my previous smile bloomed into a half-grin.

"First Star Wars, now coffee? Have you been living under a rock?" I asked, lifting the coffee pot out of it's little cove. I poured him a steaming cup of coffee. Vapor twisted up to the ceiling and my nose. The delightful smell filled my nostrils, making my mouth water like the sight of Loki had the night before.

"No," he replied. "I have been residing on Asgard. I do believe I have already explained this to you."

He sounded frustrated with my supposed forgetfulness. Yeah, he wasn't as good with the whole sarcasm thing as I originally thought. I took a point away from his "I-Like-This-Guy" roster. I turned around, coffee mug in hand, and gave him a look that clearly said that I thought he was being an idiot.

"I know that, genius. It's a saying we Earthlings have." I stated mockingly. I held the mug out to him. "Try this."

He glanced down at the cup, immediately taking it into his long fingers without so much as a quizzical eye twitch in my direction. I was almost surprised that he didn't say anything about my choice of drinking chalices. One would expect alien royalty, if he was that, to complain about a falsely blood stained cup with a fake weapon attached to it. Instead of questioning me about the odd mug, he slowly raised it to his lips, being much more cautious about the drink than I first gave him credit for.

"It's hot, so sip it," I instructed. My voice went low and soft as I gave him advice on how to not burn his tongue. I wasn't exactly sure why my tone had dropped to that of a helpful mother, but it had. Perhaps I didn't want him to burn himself on scalding liquid and start off on another tirade. It was a good morning so far, and I really didn't want that ruined by scorched flesh. Actually, the morning was kinda sucky, but I didn't want it to get any more sucky than it already was. Yeah. That had to have been my reasoning behind turning into a mother hen.

He did as I had so softly directed him to, and sipped the hot liquid from the ceramic. His face contorted with disgust. His straight eyebrows swept upward, his eyes squeezing shut underneath the dark lines. His lips pursed together ever so slightly. And I, in all of my grace and humility, couldn't help but burst out laughing. Once the laughter had faded to the point to where I could actually see him through my squinted eyes, I glanced up to find him glaring daggers at me. It only made me laugh more.

"This drink," he said over my laughter, his voice as sharp and deadly as a freezing wind, "is terrible."

I let my laughter die to soft chuckles, hoping that he wouldn't throw the coffee on me for laughing at him yet again. Very carefully, I plucked the mug from his hands. My teeth burrowed themselves into my cheek so I wouldn't go into another fit of giggles when I finally spoke.

"Okay. So, black coffee isn't for you," I said, my face still split in a huge grin. "Good to know."

I turned back to the counter, dragging forward two crimson red ceramic jars as Loki regained his pre-coffee equilibrium. I popped the tops off of each of the jars as I opened the silverwear drawer to get a spoon. Two spoonfuls of sugar, which was enough to make any type of medicine go down, and one and a half spoons of creamer later, I was ready to have the space viking give the java another go.

"That...concoction, was bitter and disgusting. I've no idea why you would choose to consume something so deplorable," he griped.

I turned around with the doctored drink in my hand and held it out to him once more. This time he eyed it suspiciously, like it was going to turn into a coyote and tear his throat out. I gave him an understanding little smirk, stepping forward a little.

"To be fair, not many people like their coffee black. Not as far as I know anyway. I just figured I could start you from the bitter bottom and work you up toward the sweet summit. That nastiness was my fault, and I'm sorry," I said. I was quite proud with my use of so many alliterations so soon after waking up. Loki didn't seem to notice, or care, for that matter. He stilled glared at the mug like it was going to beat him to death with his metal shoulder piece.

"It's not gonna bite you," I smirked. He turned his glare on me.

"Like the package was not going to bite you?" he retorted. He motioned his hand ever so slightly at the bacon on the counter. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, considering what he'd said. Yes, I had been scared that the bacon was going to turn into Gargantua. But, it hadn't, so I was okay.

"Touché," I said, nodding my head to the side in a curt movement. I looked up at him again. "But the bacon didn't sprout any fangs to nibble on me with, so my trepidation was unfounded. Drink."

I had to hand it to myself, I was getting really good at using big words before I'd consumed coffee. I was also getting really good at throwing Loki for a loop. His eyes widened ever so slightly as he stared at me. He didn't make a move to take the mug from my hands, and I quickly chalked that up to him being so flabbergasted that he had become frozen in place. My assumption was probably more false than Pamela Anderson's breasts, but it was a nice little notion.

I smiled, letting a little sigh slip out of my mouth as I reached for his wrist. To _my_ second surprise of the morning, he didn't move back. I gently grabbed his hand and raised it to grasp the smooth surface of the mug. He didn't try to pull his hand back. He didn't try to knock me away from him. But, he did seem just as shocked as I was that he was letting me guide him to grab a cup. Funny how brains tend to just shut off when you've been broadsided by the unexpected. I had the distinct feeling that he never let people touch him much, which was why he was so surprised.

"It should be better this time," I said, my voice going low and soft again. Man, I hated that! It made me seem all sweet and innocent. Sweet and innocent was a concept that I was so far away from that I was in a completely different universe than it was. Unfortunately, the honey filled tone seemed like an involuntary vocal function. "Just try it. If you don't like it this time, I'll make you some tea."

He stared at me, his eyes boring into mine as though he could suck out my thoughts and feelings on a whim. After what felt like thirty minutes of intense staring, he tore his gaze away to glace down at the lightened brown liquid. My hand fell away from his as he lifted the mug to his lips and took another sip. My eyes widened of their own accord, hopeful, for some strange reason, that he'd actually like it this time. His face didn't distort into something out of Rodin's Gates of Hell, so he must've found it at least mildly enjoyable. He did however, give the coffee a considering look after he'd swallowed.

"That is," he started, wiping a thumb across his bottom lip, "much better."

A smile blew to my lips on a breath of delighted air. A jerky nod pulled my head down once. "Good. Glad to hear it."

I wheeled myself around so I could pour my own cup of life elixir and fixed it up in my own special way, leaving Loki to sip at his java to his heart's content. One spoon of sugar and a half spoon of creamer later, I was letting brown life's blood trickle it's way to my stomach. With every sip, I took a deep breath in through my nostrils, inhaling the steam from the cup like it was going to imbed vast amounts of creativity and limitless avenues of thinking into my cerebral cortex. It wouldn't, but I'll be damned if it didn't smell that way!

"Are you going to make love to the drink, or are we going to eat something with substance instead?" Loki asked. His voice was a lovely combination of humor and frustration. It was a wonderful way for him to remind me of his presence in my kitchen. Yep, the coffee was working if I thought his irritation with me and my coffee drinking habits were lovely.

"Give me a moment," I said, holding up a finger in the direction of my kitchen table, where his voice sounded like it had come from. "I need to make sure I can move without attacking the coffee maker in a fit of passion."

He let a chuckle slip from his lips. From how quickly he stifled the sound, I think the laugh had slipped past his anti-humor defenses. There had to be some faulty wiring in his somberness machine. He really needed to get that fixed. After all, he usually sounded amused in some way. Yeah, the humor was intertwined with some other emotion, but he still exhibited cheerfulness most of the time. Well, at least he had for how long I'd known him. Then again, the man was all over the map with his feelings. Who the hell knew what was going on inside his nutbar. Er...brain.

I, reluctantly, set my mug on the counter so I could retrieve two more plates from the cupboards. I separated out two eggs, three pancakes, and four pieces of bacon for each plate. I got two sets of knives and forks out of the silverwear drawer, and set one pair of the utensils on the counter next to my plate. I felt like a waitress as I walked over to the kitchen table, balancing one of the ceramic circles on an open palm while the metal pieces were curled in my fingers.

Loki, as I'd suspected, was already seated at the rinky-dink faux crime scene, and somehow managed to look like he was the royalty he claimed to be. Perhaps it was how he was sitting. He sat sideways in the dark wood chair, his ankle settled on his knee. One elbow was propped on the edge of the table, and a long finger was crooked under his slender chin. As I set the food down on the table, he regarded me with the kind of gratitude someone would give an eighteenth century tavern wench. It kind of made me want to smack him on the back of the head. My palm itched with the need to knock him off his high horse. I told the itch to slow it's roll and go have some more coffee.

And so, it did. I sat down the plate and eating tools in front of his highness, and instantly whirled around so I could sink my teeth into a strip of meat candy. Shuffling over to the counter gave me enough time to wonder how a person could ride the emotion pendulum so often and not puke their guts out on an hourly basis. I shoved the thought of puking out of my ear hole, and plucked a piece of bacon from my plate. I shoved it into my mouth while watching Loki warily eye the pork, hen byproduct, and flattened cake fluff.

"Sorry I don't have syrup," I said through a bacon chipmunk cheek. "My pantry isn't stocked with it. Hell, my pantry isn't stocked with much. Can't fit anything in there except for a rat and prayer." I mumbled the last two sentences as I scooped up my plate. I turned around so I could lean by butt against the counter edge. I swallowed the bacon and immediately shoveled a sawed off piece of egg into my open mouth. I was usually a shy eater. For me, eating in front of people was a huge no-no. I couldn't, for the life of me, explain why that was. But, it was something I was adverse to regardless of if I knew why I hated it or not. Although, apparently mornings took away my capacity for bashfulness, as well as any sense of eating etiquette.

"That is perfectly alright," he said. He picked up his fork to delicately cut into his stack of pancakes. The metal stabbed into the pastry, then waggled at the empty seat on the other side of the table. "Why do you not sit down?"

"Uh..." was my intelligent reply. I twisted my torso around, grabbed my witty coffee cup, and resumed my previous position of straight-backed ass leaning. I loved being flexible.

My Gumby characteristics were pushed to the back of my brain to join the pile of other discarded thoughts as I took a sip of coffee and tried to articulate why I wasn't sitting at my kitchen table with Loki. Well, my grandfather had loved to eat while standing up. It drove my Grandma crazy enough that I was pretty sure he did it just to bug her. So, I could pass it off as a familial trait. Then again, I was so tired that even thinking of sitting down made me want to pass out for a week. That was a pretty good reason to not plop my ass in a particle board seat.

"Because I'd rather not fall asleep in my food," I finally responded.

Loki swallowed his mouthful of food before cocking his head to the side, his eyes sparkling underneath his black lashes. A ghost of a smile played across his features. I just kept on amusing this man when I wasn't even trying. Maybe I should be a stand-up comedian. Maybe I should go dunk my head in boiling oil.

"Do you really believe that you would slip into a slumber simply from sitting down?" he asked, slicing into an egg.

"That's the theory, Alliteration Albus," I replied into my coffee cup. Loki made a barely audible sound that was somewhere between a scoff and sigh. My small smirk was expertly concealed behind a cylinder of ceramic, and was quickly turned to a groan of pleasure. Unlike the Rolling Stones, all it took was a good cup of coffee to give me satisfaction.

"Just as the spider on the counter was a theory?" Loki asked, dismissing both his new nickname and

my noises of contentment. I shot him a watered down glare before twisting around to set my mug back on the counter.

"That was no theory," I replied, picking up my fork and shoving an entire egg into my mouth. Fuck manners. I was hungry. Once I'd swallowed, I said, "The spider was probably a really lucid hallucination brought on by exhaustion." Funny how easily that explanation came to me. Will caffeinated wonders never cease?!

"A hallucination?" he asked. He sounded almost...disappointed. Disappointed by my explanation? Disappointed by my tiredness? Disappointed by the fact that I was most likely having visions of things that terrified the shit out of me? Who knew? Point was, he sounded like I'd just told him he'd gotten a D on his mid-term. I glanced over at him, curious to see what his dissatisfied expression looked like.

Thoughtful, was what it looked like. He was blankly staring at the opposite wall, his jawline rolling as he chewed on his food. For once, I actually wondered what someone was thinking. Usually, I couldn't care less what was going on inside someone else's head. But, for some reason that was beyond my scope of understanding, I really wanted to know what was swirling around in his mind. Of course, he could've been considering if there were any flaws in Einstein's theory of relativity, or he could be thinking about how pretty ladybugs were. For all I knew, his wheels were turning, but his hamster was a skeleton. I'd met an abundance of people like that. My onslaught of overthinking filled the air as we ate. Neither of us spoke again until most of the food on our plates had been consumed. Loki was the one who broke the thick silence.

"Who is the redheaded girl in the portrait?" he asked. It was an innocent question. It was actually much more innocent than the one he'd asked the night before, bit it still hit a sore spot in my soul. I stopped mid chew, staring down at the center of my plate for a few seconds too long. With a good deal of discomfort, I swallowed a large chunk of unchewed bacon before responding.

"No one you need to know about," I said succinctly. I picked up my coffee cup, draining the cooled liquid in one large gulp. Loki cast a sideways glance at me as he finished the rest of the food on his plate. He set his fork down gently, so that the metal didn't so much as whisper a clink against the ceramic plate. With a deliberately graceful motion, he scooted his chair back and stood up, picking up his plate and mug before sauntering over to tower his form above me.

"You are very mysterious," he said. His eyes were slightly narrowed as he looked down at me with what I could only describe as an intense interest. Of course, my description was probably inaccurate because I sucked at reading people. That tends to happen when you're mostly antipathetic. While I tried to gauge his facial expressions, his eyes tried to crush me with their quizzical heft. I needed to escape the weight of his gaze without twitching like I'd just been tasered, so I turned around to set my empty coffee mug down on the counter one last time.

I opened my mouth to say that my air of mysteriousness was all in a day's work. What came out instead was, "Says the self-proclaimed space alien with a superiority complex."

I winced. Yeah, the guy made my thought process go all sorts of wonky, but that was no excuse for my brain-to-mouth filter to just flip its switch to Fuck You. Then again, it did that no matter what. I really needed to get that fixed. I needed my filter fixed like Loki needed his anti-humor machine fixed. Ronan was good with machines. Maybe he could repair ours for us. I reached for the coffee pot so I could refill my cup while dodging Loki's vexed gaze. I actually had no idea if his gaze was vexed or not, but finding out was the very last thing on my to-do list now that he'd woken up.

"Self proclaimed space alien with a superiority complex?" Loki repeated, a lilt on the end of his sentence forming it into a curious question. He didn't sound too angry. I supposed that was a good thing. Unless he was so pissed that he was calm. Been there. Done that. Destroyed a junk yard because of it.

"Gee. It sounds even better when you say it," I mumbled. I immediately stabbed myself in the metaphysical foot.

_Shut up, Alex!_ I cried within the confines of my own head. _If he's so pissed that he's calm, you will be his junkyard! He was nice enough not to murder you in your sleep. Don't push him!_

My hand was less than an inch away from the coffee pot handle when a sheen of scales sprouted from the hard plastic. The black handle morphed, turning slender and long and alive. A blunt nose poked up from the glass. Two beady eyes steadied themselves on the tasty tidbits that were my phalanges. I bit back a scream of panic, shoving my open palm to the left of the coffee maker. My fingers wrapped around the handle of a butcher knife and pulled it from the bubble man that it had been so quietly resting in. As I brought the knife down on the handle-turned-cobra, a pale hand waved through my peripheral vision. The snake returned to its original form, and my knife sounded with a lovely crack when it connected with an inanimate object.

In one fluid motion, I lifted the knife again, spun away from the counter, and braced myself to attack the man that I'd just made breakfast for.


	9. Great Explanations

_Chapter 9: Great Explanations_

Light glistened off of metal like the twinkling of a deadly star. I was poised for anything. If Loki rushed me, I would stab him. If he turned into a snake himself, I would stab him. If he ran away, I would curl into the fetal position and scream until I contracted a bad case of laryngitis, then commit myself to the psych ward. The one and only thing I was not prepared for was the smug triumph that was smeared across the pale face of the tall man in my kitchen.

"What the fuck was that?!" I cried, panic raising my voice two octaves higher than it should've been. Loki's expression shifted into it's usual amusement, with a hint of pure joy behind his eyes. He took a step forward. I countered by taking a step back and raising my knife a hair higher that it had been. If he came at me, he would taste the tangy bite of steel in his chest cavity. I lifted my other hand as if to ward off any more advances, pointing my index finger skyward. "You keep your ass right there, or I will prove to you that the best way to a man's heart is between his fourth and fifth ribs!"

His good-guy roster burst into flames behind my eyelids. In the back of my head, I started stacking up the pros and cons of having him in my house. The cons were that he was rude, condescending, arrogant, psycho, and could turn coffee pot handles into venomous snakes. The pros were that he was smoking hot. Yeah, the pro was a really good one, but it was not enough to make me want him in my kitchen any longer.

To my great relief, Loki had stopped moving toward me, apparently taking my warning of imminent death to heart. I gave him a glare that had often melted many Ronan's employees into quivering masses of muscle. The fact that I could make 300 pound manly-men revert into scolded toddlers gave me a great deal of satisfaction. The fact that I couldn't make a comparatively bean-pole sized man even flinch gave me considerably less satisfaction. Actually, it made me all that much more annoyed with him. I gathered my wits about me, rolling my shoulders backward. It was a classic sign of fighting past fear and pain, and I knew the motion all too well.

"What," I growled through gritted teeth, "the fuck was that?"

"That was just a bit of fun," he said. His eyebrows crawled up on his forehead. He looked like he was a harmless teenager playing a hilarious prank. But he wasn't a teenager, and it hadn't been hilarious in the slightest. The fact that I, a person who was surely going to hell for their overly-offensive sense of humor, didn't find his little prank to be humorous meant that it was not funny in the least.

I swallowed back a bellow of outraged vocabulary, forcing my voice to be low and steady when it finally came out. "If you think a cobra is fun, then you have a fucked up sense of what's fun." He opened his mouth to speak again, his face still too happy for the situation. I cut him off. "How did you do that?"

"I did nothing," he chuckled. He turned his palms upward and spread his hands out to the side as thought he were a showgirl on The Price is Right. He lifted a foot to take a step. My lifted finger stabbed through the air at him, much like my knife would if he didn't stop coming toward me.

"Stay right there, dammit. Now, lying will get this here knife stabbed through your neck even faster, so I suggest you tell the truth." My usually middle-of-nowhere accent morphed into the Southern one that only came out when I was tired and pissed. Well, really it came out whenever the hell it wanted to, but it usually happened when I was exhausted and angry. The same happened with the Irish accent that I harbored somewhere in the base of my skull.

A smile tweaked Loki's lips, and he let his hands fall to his sides on a sigh. "Do you really think your little knife can hurt me?"

"I'm willing to find out. Answer the question." I ordered. I was getting sick of the runaround. If he kept this shit up, I was going to have to learn to like prison orange.

He sighed again, and this time his smile slipped down to a frown. He pulled his hands behind his back. The move straightened his spine and pulled back his shoulders. His chest puffed out, making the thin, gray cloth stretch across the hard curve of his pecs. I bit down on my tongue, keeping it from darting out to wet my suddenly dry lips. I used the sharp twinge to my advantage, utilizing it to help me focus on turning my fear into anger instead of lust. This was why I didn't do relationships. Or hot men.

"How did you do that?" I repeated into his silence.

"Magic," he replied. A harsh laugh tore form my throat in an involuntary sound. I couldn't help it. It was a reflex reaction to my Bullshit-o-meter blowing up from cow dung overload.

"Magic?" I repeated, derisively. One of his eyebrows quirked up on his forehead. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that? I didn't fall off the orange truck yesterday, dude. You can't expec-"

"You demand the truth from me, yet you do not believe it when I speak it," Loki cut me off. I tweaked my own eyebrow up to mirror his.

"Because magic doesn't exist," I argued, pulling my brow back down to pinch the lines of hair together. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. Very elegantly, he shuffled one foot around the other, crossing his slender legs in a slow sidestep. My knife lifted itself a centimeter higher.

"Perhaps in your world, it does not. However, in mine, it is very real," he said.

My eyes widened of their own accord. Deep within my soul, I felt a pang of childish hope. The last remaining spark of innocence, the only one that hadn't been destroyed by years of torturous hardship, still wished that magic existed. It still wished that a wand and a spell could mend a broken life; that it could repair a shattered heart and repair the parts of me that had become jaded. That tiny piece of the bright-eyed toddler I'd once been peeked out from under the safety blankets, searching for the fairy godmother that would make it all better.

Darkness quickly quenched the hope. My older, wiser mind recognized the hope of it's undamaged counterpart, and instantly shot down the idea of an angel in disguise coming to the rescue. No magic could ever fix my past, present, or future. No spell could ever bring back what was ripped away from me. No glass slipper could give me my dreams, and no rose could grant me a prince. No enchanted brooms could sweep the dirt from my slate. No wish on a star had ever made my life bearable.

I shoved the painful thoughts aside in favor of glaring at the man in my kitchen. My mouth stayed closed, unable to come up with even a syllable good enough to express my doubt. Loki, who was ever so slowly gliding his way closer to me, lifted a single eyebrow.

"You still do not believe that I come from another realm?" he asked. His tone was slightly disappointed, as though he couldn't comprehend why I wouldn't trust my own eyes. With a slow, deliberate motion, I shook my head at him, my eyebrows still knitted together over my eyes. The tightness of my scowl was giving me a headache. But, my mind didn't care about the physical pain in my forehead as much as the vexation that itched at my temples, so my eyebrows stayed screwed together.

"Do you wish for me to demonstrate?" he asked, unlatching one hand from behind his back to sweep it toward the counter. His lowered eyebrow had joined his lifted one high on his forehead, trying their hardest to push against his hairline, until wrinkles creased the pale skin.

"No, I don't want you to demonstrate!" I snapped. Impossibly, his eyebrows raised a bit higher out of surprise at my sudden outburst. I didn't blame him for being shocked. My explosive mouth had even caught me off guard. I opened my mouth to tell him that I wanted him to get out of my house, when the doorbell echoed its chime throughout my small home. My eyes widened on his before they flicked over his shoulder to stare at the foyer. I spared him another glance, sidestepping around him as much as my measly kitchen would allow. His eyes followed me, humor and irritated confusion flashing behind the blue-gray orbs as they did.

I inched my way past him as the bell chimed again. I didn't lower my knife until I was well out of his reach. Stalking to the door gave me enough time to wonder who was bothering me on my day off. My mind slipped in a nugget of wondering just what else in my house Loki was going to animorph while I was shooing the intruder away. I set the knife on the foyer table so I didn't scare the person on the other side of the sealed entryway, and yanked the door open as knuckles met wood.

A leggy blonde in white shorts and flowing, cleavage baring light blue top stood on my step. A white purse with gold accents was slung over he shoulder. Her shoulder blade length hair was styled into beach waves, and her cornflower blue eyes were lined with subtle shades of smoky gray. A pearlescent pink was painted on her thin lips, and a sweep of coral blush colored the apples of her high cheekbones. Her jaw rolled, and I saw a blue lump swirl around behind her impossibly white teeth. She was standing a few inches taller than her usual five foot five. Looking down, I saw that her feet were squeezed into bright blue, four inch stiletto pumps. I rolled my eyes back up to stare at her, confused as hell as to why she was ringing my doorbell at...What time was it?

"I need you to watch Mikey for me today," she announced, pushing her way past me. Stunned, I stared at the outside world for a few silent moments. The neighborhood looked like it did every day: barren and tan. There was nothing new out there, except for maybe a few birds flying south for the winter. There was no reason for me to stand there with my mouth hanging open like a fish out of water, but I was doing just that.

I snapped back into myself when I remembered that Loki was still in my kitchen turning handles into snakes. To the dry landscape I said, in my usual accent, "Come on in, why don't you?"

I turned around to face the woman standing on the middle of my living room. She had a look on her face that said she felt like she was about to get an STD just from standing on my carpet. In all actuality, I was worried about my carpet getting an STD from her. The woman was more loose than a piece of paper in a category five hurricane. It was a wonder you couldn't smell herpes on her.

"I'm not watching your son for you, Andrea," I said, swinging my door closed behind my back. I cast a longing glance at the butcher knife on the half-circle table, wishing a good threat would get her out of my house. Then again, that hadn't worked very well on Loki. Plus, she would probably have me arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. She was a bitch like that.

"Why not?" she asked with a subtle scoff, rolling the piece of gum around in her mouth.

"It's my day off, and he isn't my kid. Why don't you take care of him for a change?" I said, strolling into my living room. I crossed my arms under my breasts.

She let out a louder scoff at my recommendation. "What? Like you're doing anything?" I wanted to punch her in the ovaries. I sucked in a deep breath, promising myself more coffee if I could just keep myself from physically assaulting her. She was always pawning her son off on someone in the neighborhood. It was a shame, too. He was a good kid. He was an excellent kid when you took into consideration who his mother was.

"Yes, actually, I am. But even if I weren't," I said, carefully, trying to not rip her head off with my tone, "Mike isn't my kid. He's yours."

"I know that!" she snipped. "I just have a date tonight. And you're always watching the neighborhood kids anyway. I figured it wouldn't be too much trouble for you to watch him for a few hours."

"Everyone else pays me to watch their offspring," I reasoned.

_And, they usually don't go on dates with ten different men a week,_ I said to myself. Apparently, I didn't say the last part to just myself, because red swept her cheeks. Her lips pursed themselves together in a thin line, and her eyebrows knitted down over her cornflower orbs. This is what happens when my filter doesn't work. I say shit out loud that I never mean to _actually_ say out loud.

"I do not date ten different men a week!" she scowled with unjustified indignation.

"Seems that way to me," I replied, tweaking one side of my mouth up in a sneer. "How many of these dudes have even met your son? Do you even tell them you have a kid? Or do you just bone 'em and leave 'em?"

"How dare you!" she cried, her face contorting with fury. "I came here t-"

"Pardon me, ladies," a smooth male voice said from the doorway of my kitchen, cutting off Andrea's ill-founded tirade. Andrea's face smoothed over with surprise. Her head snapped to her right, immediately morphing into a flirty expression the second she set her eyes on Loki. I followed her gaze. I couldn't blame her for wanting to flirt with the man. He looked scrumptious standing in the doorway with his hands pulled behind his back and the gray fabric straining across the expanse of his chest. Thankfully, I knew that all six foot two of him was packed with crazy. My body, however, didn't care how certifiably insane he was. My arms loosened their grips on my stomach to dangle themselves at my sides.

It took Loki stepping into my living room for me to notice that his hair was much messier than it had been when I'd left him in my kitchen. Before, it had been mostly straight with a few bedhead waves. Now, it was mussed and messy, with much more frizz and waves than before. If I hadn't known any better, I'd say that he had sex-hair. My own mouth fell open ever so slightly, more from shock than from lust. At least my brain had partial control over my mouth's actions.

"I am quite sorry to interrupt, Ms..." he let the question of Andrea's name hang in the air as he reached for her hand. She lifted a tanned appendage to meet his pale one. He bowed at the waist as he took her hand in his, in a graceful motion that I was pretty sure had stopped being used sometime in the 1940's.

"Watson. Andrea Watson," she said. Her voice was velvety soft, and had a hint of bewilderment nestled under a blanket of fervor. I couldn't blame her for being bewildered as to why such a handsome man was in my house. I barely believed it, myself. But, again, I knew that he was a whackadoo, so that made it a bit more believable for me.

Loki twisted her hand ever so delicately, bringing it to his lips to plant a gentle kiss on the back of her hand. I gagged a little. I couldn't help it. It was my natural reaction to watching people being romantic. It dawned on me that I had a lot of natural reactions when it came to dealing with other people, and that most of those reactions tended to incite rage in said people.

"Ms. Watson," he repeated, ignoring my sounds of revulsion. He lowered her hand away from his mouth, and straightening his spine again, said, "I am very sorry, but you have come at a rather inconvenient time." He had no idea how wrong he was. I had been getting ready to stab him when she'd rang the doorbell. I guessed I should've been thanking her for keeping me out of jail instead of belittling her adulterous ways, but I wasn't that good of a person. Besides, she was lucky that I hadn't stabbed _her_ when she'd barged into my house without so much as questioning look as to whether she could enter or not. She was still lucky, because Loki had just saved her dumb ass from getting a foot shoved up it.

During my inward replaying of how lucky everyone in the house was, I hadn't noticed that Loki had walked his way behind me. His hand settling itself on my right hip brought me back to the situation at hand. I opened my mouth to protest his sudden touching of my body, but was abruptly stopped when he started talking again.

"Alex and I were..." he paused for a second, taking in a breath as though he were trying to think of the right words to say. He settled on, "rather busy when you came to call."

His hand on my hip snaked around my waist to press my back against him. It must've been one hell of an awkward angle for his arm to be in, seeing as I was so much shorter than he was. At that point, even a monkey could've understood what he was insinuating. Which made it surprising as hell that Andrea's eyes darkened with jealousy. I'd always pegged her as being dumber than our ancestral counterparts. I actually thought her IQ was somewhere in the negative numbers. I guessed I thought wrong.

She smacked her gum against the roof of her mouth before nestling it into the hollow of her cheek. Her lips thinned out a touch more, pulling against her teeth in irritation. Loki's left hand smoothed down the curve of my side, disappearing from Andrea's sight to caress my butt. I bit down on my tongue, so hard that I drew blood, trying to not whirl around and ram my knee between his legs.

The sharp pain and the metallic taste of pennies helped to clear my mind of vicious thoughts. It was odd how pain was able to make me focus on what should logically be done instead of what I was emotionally wanting to enact. I pulled out the skills that my high school drama class has instilled in me a lifetime ago, focusing on acting like a smitten lover. All the while, I was telling myself that Loki's hand violating my backside would be worth it if Andrea turned green with envy. Was it petty of me to want to make her jealous, even if she had nothing to be jealous about? Yes. Did I care? No. Was I going to punch Loki in the throat after this for grabbing my ass? Oh, hell yes.

Andrea's eyes narrowed a little at me when Loki's hand disappeared from her view, as if it were my fault that she wasn't the one getting petted by the mysteriously handsome tall dude. She shifted her weight, dragging the toes of her heels across my carpet as she did. Loki's arm tightened around my waist again, pressing me into him further. The thin fabric of my pants, combined with the thin fabric of his, did nothing in the way of modesty. No, there was no modesty to be had on this day, because I could feel everything he had going on in his downtown, and it was _not_ a small situation.

Blood surged to my cheeks in a blush. My entire face felt like it was on fire. I dipped my eyes to stare at Andrea's feet, cursing both Loki and my body for making me turn redder than a firetruck that was smeared with cherry jam and ketchup. I tried to shove the blush back down to my toes, but with Loki still pressing his body into my back, I ended up failing miserably.

_Maintain an air of badassery, Alex,_ I told myself. _Keep some semblance of your dignity during this. You can make him pay later. And think of how pissed off Andrea will be if you manage to keep cool._

I liked the way I was thinking! Even if I was blushing like a prude in a dildo factory, I could still force myself to be some kind of a hardass. Women did this kind of stuff all the time in public, especially at the bar where I worked. If they could do it, then by gods, so could I. I lifted my still red face to stare at Andrea. She glared at me like I was the anti-christ. I gave her my sweetest smile in return as a kind of kick to her perfect teeth. There's nothing like someone desperately wanting what they think you have.

"Perhaps," Loki started, brushing his cheek against my ear, "you can return at a later time? I've many more plans for Alex and myself, and I wish to carry them out as soon as possible." He placed a gentle kiss behind my right ear. My immediate reaction was to pull away. Unfortunately, that wouldn't make Andrea look like an Irish hillside, so I fluttered my eyes closed and wrapped my arms over Loki's so I could more easily nuzzle myself into his chest.

My acting must've been phenomenal, because I heard a strangled groan of frustration bubble and die in Andrea's throat. She expertly covered it with a cough. I opened my eyes as she sucked in a deep breath in an effort to control her vexation at me. Her hands were twitching with anger, and I could see in her eyes just how unfair she thought this situation was. It wasn't like she boned every hot guy who ever asked her out. It wasn't like she was constantly having men fawning over her every move. Sure, they had no idea that eighty percent of her was made of plastic, but that didn't matter much to the men when they were bumping uglies with clinically enhanced perfection. You'd think she'd realize that she had a literal leg up on me. I never dated anyone. And I certainly never boned hot dudes. Logically, she had nothing to be jealous of.

Too bad for her, she wasn't a very logical creature. No, she was one of those people who told you one thing and magically expected you to know that she meant something else entirely. She was one of those chicks that would tell you to go hang out with your friends and be pissed when you did just that. Maybe that was why the dudes she dated never stuck around for more than a day and a half. That was what I was putting my money on, at least.

She forced a tight smile to her painted lips, settling her eyes on Loki. "Of course," she said, her voice taught with animosity. The words were directed at Loki; the animosity was all for me. It made me smile with sick glee that she thought I actually cared how she felt. "Will you walk me out, Mr..."

"Loki," he said, much in the same way she had. He didn't add a last name on to his first like she had, though. Come to think of it, he hadn't done that when I'd met him either. Did space aliens not have last names, or was Loki kind of like Cher or Madonna? Whatever the case may have been, Andrea mistook his first name as his last.

"Will you walk me out, Mr. Loki?" she asked. Her voice had turned to honey as I'd listened. I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure that she was going to put the moves on him the second she thought I was out of ear shot. Such a considerate young woman, that Andrea.

"Of course, Ms. Watson," Loki replied. He released me, and my mind clung to the fact that he basically sounded like Sherlock Holmes in that instant. The British accent and the Ms. Watson thing was what did it for me. I was about to cough out a chuckle when my body realized that it was no longer pressed against Loki's and decided to try to collapse. I caught myself, locking my knees so I didn't meet floor for the second time that morning.

I staggered a little, and instantly began hoping that neither Andrea nor Loki saw my reaction. Actually, Andrea seeing it wouldn't be so bad, because it would reinforce for her that Loki was a good enough lover to make me stumble even though he was only leaving my side. Loki seeing it, however, might give him some small semblance of elation at the fact that he could make my body go weak without even trying. I did not want him thinking he could make me turn into a puddle of goo on a whim, especially when the reaction wasn't of my own volition.

Loki was already escorting the whore, I mean Andrea, to the front door. I turned to watch them walk, happy that my knees kept themselves locked like a high security prison. Andrea had her hands clasped in front of her. Her shoulders were lifted and her head was ducked ever so slightly, in body language that seemingly innocent little girls had when they were asking an impure question. I almost expected her to start grinding her toe into my carpet when they stopped at the front door. She didn't, and I was thankful. I'd hate for her faux bashfulness to ruin my floor.

Loki reached past her arm to grab the knob, and Andrea's hand broke away from it's timid state to boldly grab his wrist. He shot her what I could only describe as a death glare before softening the glance into something more seductively dangerous, rather than just flat out dangerous. She lowered her head a little more and leaned forward to whisper something to him. Her head moved just a little bit in my direction, like she wanted to glance over her shoulder at me, but almost instantly thought better of it. Loki spared me a glance, though, before a charming smile curled his lips up at the corners.

He twisted the knob to open the door as he parted his lips to speak. While Andrea had made sure to whisper so I couldn't make out what she was saying, Loki raised his voice so I could clearly hear what he was saying to the blonde ingenue. "I'm afraid that you will never be able to rival Alex in beauty or skill, Ms. Watson. Frankly, I don't understand why any man would choose you over such a beautiful creature as she."

Andrea took a step back like she'd just been slapped in the face, and turned to glare at me. Her mouth gaped open, her jaw landing somewhere in a small Chinese village on the other side of the world. In that moment, I could have kissed Loki for wounding her ego so skillfully. I wasn't going to. I was actually going to punch him in the throat. But, he deserved at least a peck on the cheek for degrading her so completely while also paying me a huge compliment. Maybe I wouldn't frog him in the throat after all. Maybe I would just slug his arm. Then again, he still deserved to be stabbed for doing whatever the hell he did to my coffee maker and bacon. It was then that I realized that he was more than likely behind the bacon fiasco as well. Yep. I was going to punch him.

When I snapped out of my thoughts again, I found that Andrea's gaze held the promise of years of agonizing torture that were to be carried out in the depths of Hell. I think she expected me to flinch. Too bad for her, I'd lived through those years of Hell torture already, and only gave her a little little smile and a curt wave. Her face flushed red with anger. She wheeled around on the spikes of her heels in a flair of blonde hair, and stomped out of the door that Loki held open for her. I had to admit, it was impressive, watching her navigate on those things. If I'd spun around on those pumps like she had, I'd have broken my ankle, and, subsequently, my neck.

My introspective admiration of her strong ankles came to an end when Loki clicked the door shut. He turned to face me, a little smirk quirking the left side of his mouth. He made his way back into the living room while I stood there wondering what I should do first. Should I hit him, or thank him? Should I punch first and show gratitude later, or vice versa? My mouth, uninhibited little bastard that it is, decided for me.

"Thanks for getting her our of my hair," I said. His smirk blossomed into a smile. He stopped in front of me with a grin threatening to split his face.

"I require no gratitude from you. Her reaction was thanks enough for me. I quite enjoyed it," he replied, his grin dimming ever so slightly as he spoke.

Man, it was hard to be mad at him when he was smiling at me like that. I almost didn't want to hit him. But then I remembered the look on his face when I was freaking out over my coffee pot turning into a snake. I remembered his hand cupping my ass when the need to do so was nonexistent. I was going to frog him in the throat before, but I figured it would be rude of me to ram the knuckle of my middle finger into his windpipe after he'd helped me get a super bitch out of my house. So, I punched him in the shoulder as hard as I could. People could say a lot of things about me, but they couldn't say that I didn't follow through with threats.

Loki let out a grunt and stumbled backward. Even though I worked out on a regular basis, the stumble was probably more from surprise than from any physical pain caused by my punch. Nonetheless, it still sent a thrill of victory through me that he lost control of his feet. He shot a death glare my way, similar to the one that he had given Andrea, only with a lot more promise of impending eternal sleep. He straightened his spine, which made me realize that he'd folded in on himself a little as he'd moved backwards, and opened his mouth to threaten my life. I beat him to the punch.

"That was for scaring the shit out of me and grabbing my ass!" I exclaimed, jabbing a finger through the air at him. His mouth quickly cranked itself closed like the moat door on a castle. It didn't take long for him to regain his bearings after my minimal outburst.

"After all I've done for you?" he asked, his voice taking on a little wavering lilt at the end to make it a question.

"I should be saying that," I countered, stalking past him to grab my butcher knife off of the foyer table. I snatched the utensil up and spun around on my heel to face him again. I waggled the point of the knife at his head. "You're lucky I didn't stab you for turning my coffee pot into a fucking cobra."

"Did I not apologize for that?" he asked. He stayed standing in the middle of my living room. It was a wise choice on his part, seeing as I had a knifeion my hand.

"No, you didn't," I replied, stepping around the corner of the wall so I could return the knife to it's rightful place in the kitchen. I made it to the entryway of the tiny room before he spoke again.

"Are you certain?" he asked. I stopped in the kitchen doorway, my left hand bracing itself on the wall corner. I twisted the handle of the knife in my hand, letting out a soft sigh. I didn't know if he was trying to manipulate me into thinking that he had actually apologized or not, but whatever he was trying to do, it wasn't going to work.

I pulled my lips away from my teeth, making a wet sucking noise when the flesh shucked itself away from enamel, and pursed my lips into a thin line as I glanced over my shoulder at him. "Yes," I replied succinctly. I turned back around and stalked into my kitchen.

I'd already stabbed the knife back into the red bubble man and put away the food by the time Loki joined me. I was putting the dirty dishes into the sink when he walked into the cooking room. His hair was smoothed back down as much as it could possibly be. His face, handsome as it was, would've been bordering on solemn if there hadn't been a sparkle of amusement in his eyes. I was beginning to think that the humor was always just beneath the surface with him. I liked a man with a sense of humor. If he didn't keep creeping me out and changing primary emotions like a chameleon, I would think about dating him. Then again, I didn't have much room to talk on the whole emotional lizard analogy aspect of things. I changed my emotions almost as much as he did. Well, this morning I did, anyway.

"I did not meant to frighten you," he said as he walked up behind me. "It was simply a bit of fun."

"Venomous coffee pot handles are not what most people would consider fun, Loki," I replied, moving toward the aforementioned appliance. I eyed the pot warily as I reached for it, much like I had with the bacon. "More coffee?" I asked him, turning my head enough to put him in my peripheral vision.

"Please," he said with a slight nod. I picked up the pot cautiously, waiting for the glass to turn into a porcupine. I was ready to fling the bitch against the wall if that happened. It didn't. I was grateful.

"Was the spider you, too?" I asked. I poured the remaining coffee into the two mugs, doctoring them up as I waited for Loki to respond.

His prolonged silence was enough of an answer for me, but still, he had the grace to say "Yes."

I turned to give him his coffee cup, knitting my brows together with his admission. My lip rolled under to be grabbed by my teeth. I hadn't expected him to reply to that question with honesty. After all, he'd lied about his involvement in the spider bacon before the coffee pot incident. Well, he didn't so much deny his hand in it as he made fun of me for thinking the food had turned into a bug, but still. He took the mug from my hand with an appreciative little nod.

"I guess I should've hit you with the frying pan, after all," I said in a slightly joking tone. I raised my own mug to take a sip of the dark roast.

"I am grateful that you did not," he replied into his own mug. We drank from our cups at the same time, bringing poetic thoughts into my head about married couples at weddings, and Loki and I being in unison with one another. My stomach, repulsed by the idea of happy honeymooners, did a backflip in an attempt to expel the new wave of coffee from my esophagus. I spluttered and choked on the warm liquid, almost spitting it out onto Loki. I was, thankfully, able to roughly swallow the java down before that happened.

Loki, the poor, confused bastard, nearly leaped back as I started hacking up part of my trachea. I pressed a closed fist to my mouth, trying to stop the coughing from escaping through clamped lips. It didn't work nearly as well as I'd wanted it to. The coughs raked through my lungs, forcing my mouth open behind my hand and spilling out between my fingers.

"Are you-" Loki started. I waved a hand through the air to silence him, nodding my head as another cough tore from my mouth.

"Yeah, no. I'm good. Just, give me a second to"- another cough rattled my lungs- "keep myself from dying." Steadying hands grabbed hold of my shoulders as one last cough ripped through my throat. They straightened me up so I was standing at my full height. I hadn't even realized that I'd doubled myself over during my hacking fit. My mug was, somehow, sitting on the counter and not missing a single drop of precious brown liquid from it. Next to it sat Loki's brass knuckles mug. Loki himself had his large hands on my shoulders, keeping me upright while I gaped at the mugs.

I felt his finger crook itself under my chin, and turned my head as the pressure he put there guided me to do. A hint of concern tightened the skin around his eyes, which danced over my twisted features. My face slackened with something akin to masked horror. This was way too intimate for my liking. In my mind, even his display of affection toward me when Andrea had been here hadn't been so...affectionate.

"Are you certain you are all right?" he asked. His eyes locked on to mine, holding me in place just as efficaciously as his hands did. The little voices in the back of my head had a screaming match, trying to yell over each other within the confines of my head. One was telling me to punch him and the other was telling me to kiss him. Neither choice seemed appropriate. Especially not the kissing one. I'd just met the man, for chrissake. Instead of kissing or hitting him, like the annoying little voices were ordering me to, I stepped back and batted his hand under my chin away.

"I'm fine," I replied hoarsely. Coughing like I'd just been told I'd swallowed poison did nothing for maintaining a smooth voice. No, it actually made me sound like I smoked three packs a day. "Thanks for caring, though."

His hand fell away from my shoulder as I stepped back. I snatched up my coffee, mentally telling both my stomach and the liquid to not try to murder me again or I'd have them forcibly removed from the premises. I doubted either of them cared much, especially because they knew I would do no such thing. Threats kind of turn hollow when said threats would end up killing you quicker than the thing you were threatening would. I replayed that logic in my head to make sure it made sense, found that it did, and shrugged my shoulders as I took a sip of coffee. It didn't try to kill me. All was right with the world. Really, things were fucked up beyond belief, and that was just in my kitchen, let alone around the rest of the planet.

If Loki had said anything while my mind had threatened inanimate objects, I hadn't heard him. Instead of asking him if he'd said anything, like any respectful person would do, I skipped straight to demanding answers from him about his supposed magic.

"So, you used magic to turn my bacon into a spider, and turn my coffee pot into a cobra?" I asked into my coffee.

"Yes. Did we not just discuss this?" he replied. He sounded slightly irritated with me. One sideways glance confirmed my suspicion. I guess he had been talking, which meant that I had ignored anything that he might've said about his caring nature. Oops.

"We did, but I wasn't done discussing it," I shrugged. I turned to face him again, trying to connect with him a deeper level than surface, but not so deep as to be as intimate as before. I hated intimacy. Maybe that's why I didn't have many friends. That would make a lot of sense. "How did you do it?"

A gentle sigh escaped Loki's lips and he glanced down. I expected him to start shaking his head at my supposed ignorance, but instead he cocked his head to the side to look up at me through his eyebrows. It was an extremely attractive look on him. It made him seem more like the guy that you didn't want to take home to meet your parents than he already seemed. Throw a leather jacket and some torn jeans on him and you'd have the quintessential bad boy persona that was so commonly portrayed in movies.

"I told you this, as well," he said, with just a hint of tired exasperation seeping into his tone. "T'was magic."

I furrowed my brows, somehow more concerned with his Old English speech patterns than the fact that he was repeating what I already knew instead of answering my question. "Did you seriously just say 't'was'?" He opened his mouth to answer my rhetorical question, and I sliced a dismissive hand through the air to stop him. I screwed my eyes shut, trying to refocus my attention on the information I was attempting to milk from him. I pinched the bridge of my nose before continuing. "Okay. Rephrase. How did you do the magic?"

"I've no idea how to explain it to someone who has not experienced it," he said. I cast a sideways glance up at him, much like he'd done to me only a few minutes before. His eyes widened a little bit, and I was pretty sure that if he hadn't had his lips wrapped around ceramic, that he would be licking them. Apparently, he thought I was just as attractive in that position as I'd thought he had been. I distantly wondered if Ronan would lend me money for a man whore. Maybe then my libido would shut itself down long enough for me to get Loki out of my house without me jumping him beforehand.

"Try," I ordered. He lifted an eyebrow up, pulling the mug away from his lips. His thumb wiped away the excess liquid that threatened to slide down his chin. I could all but hear the wheels in his head turning as he tried to think of a way to explain his version of how to perform magic to a muggle. A few long minutes of silence passed, and it didn't seem he was any closer to finding an explanation. I licked my bottom lip, biting back a sigh. I was about to tell him to forget it, but his smooth baritone broke the silence first.

"Magic is simply the mind bending the world to it's will," he started carefully. "I willed the meat to transform it's shape, and with a flick of my wrist, it was so. I willed the handle to become a snake, and it was so. All I did was will the objects to my do my bidding, and they did."

It took me a second or two to will myself to say only one of my multiple questions, instead of releasing them in a barrage of interrogative phrases. "So, you bend the object to become what you want?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"And there's no power involved in this? Just will?"

"There is power involved, yes. The will simply commands the power to carry out a specific action," he said simply. That seemed logical enough. Except we weren't talking about science, which was all logic-based. We were talking about magic, which was the stuff of impossible fairy tales.

"Do you have to move your hand to do it?" I asked.

"I've never thought to try," he said. The tone in his voice confirmed that he had not, in fact, considered using his skill set without the use of his hands, but he was certainly doing so now. I left him to it, focusing on myself for a few befuddled moments.

I took a deep breath, trying to absorb the given information as if the information itself were the air I sucked into my lungs. It wasn't, and it didn't do anything but make my chest hurt from expanding too far. I released a bit of air in a small sigh so I was no longer trying to break my physical parameters, and glanced away from Loki's still contemplative face.

"Okay," I said slowly, trying to control the level of skepticism in my voice. "So you use power to will objects to transform into animals. What else can you do?"

"You will learn the rest of my abilities in time," he responded cryptically. Something flashed in his eyes, the emotion moving too quick behind his irises to name. I didn't know if that was meant to send a cold chill of foreboding down my spine or not, but it did. It also sent a thrill of hot, lascivious promise up my spine. The two met in the middle, clashing so hard into each other that a shiver wracked my body. I thanked myself for already drinking three-quarters of the coffee so that the shiver didn't make the java splash out onto my hands. I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, when Foghat's "Slow Ride" sounded from the living room.


End file.
